


Weightless

by Shut_Up_Alexa



Series: Weightless [1]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Mythology/Religion, Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Noir, Character Study, Dark, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Drama & Romance, Dreamscapes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Extended Metaphors, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Long, Male-Female Friendship, Metaphors, Mythology References, No Shepard Without Vakarian, Original Character(s), Original Mythology, POV Alternating, POV Garrus Vakarian, Paragon Shepard (Mass Effect), Past Thane Krios/Shepard, Pre-Canon, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Romance, Shakarian - Freeform, Surreal, Transformation, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust, Visions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 75,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28958499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shut_Up_Alexa/pseuds/Shut_Up_Alexa
Summary: The Krogans say that the only stories worth telling are those of love, sex, and war. Mass Effect Noir. Mix of canon, original content and AU ME1-3. A retelling of the origins of Jane Shepard and Garrus Vakarian during the Reaper War.Original past for survivor female Shepard as a runaway/Hallex mule on Omega. Mysterious femme fatale-leaning paragade with secrets. Neo-noir loss of innocence story and character study for Garrus's metamorphosis into Archangel. Reflections and storytelling from the perspective of other characters and crew, including a character exploration of Thane. Visions and slips into the surreal with an emphasis on belief systems and culture.This is the complete prose and plot rework of the unfinished original version posted to fanfiction.net from years back.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Series: Weightless [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123979
Comments: 73
Kudos: 39
Collections: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect Mix Of All





	1. Prologue: The Renegade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl has a dream.  
> A girl has a gun.

The night was red.

Crimson lights etched into the limbs of the thousand bodies of a dozen species entwined in lust and desperation. An ocean of organic life pulsed to the electric heartbeat of Afterlife. Blue skin and silvered crests, void-black eyes, sweat and tears amidst and among appendages with indecipherable names. Bodies bathed in anonymity; lips and claws and forgotten sobriety, everything at once alive and asleep in writhing diversion.

It was no place for a child.

A small figure cut through through the hive of depravity; little feet in worn shoes. Each step measured and deliberate. Unknowing fingers brushed her by chance, too intoxicated to notice, but when the eye sought her she was already gone. Just a small pale face beneath a scarlet hood, evanescent in the fevered dark. She reached the edge of the crowd. From beneath her cowl, slate-grey eyes fixed on the Batarian silhouette leaned over in the furthest booth, tilted toward the sensuous forms of the Asari peelers on display. An untouched Palaven Sunrise sat perched and glistening at his hand, a cold blue cocktail named for the irradiated homeworld of the turians; the code of this ill-met meeting confirmed. 

She slid in the booth without a word. He didn't move his beetle-black stare from the azure bodies before him.

"The bouncers didn't give you a problem then." He stated, detached. Two small hands folded in their fingerless gloves on the gleaming table. 

“Of course not. Krogans aren’t hard to bribe.” She leaned in, her weight balanced firmly on bony wrists. She lifted her head. A ray of blood colored light ghosted across her colorless eyes, which burned beneath her hood. "But fish are getting expensive these days. I'll be needing a charge number."

The Batarian snorted a dry laugh, not breaking his gaze on the spectacle of latex and bodies before him. "What are you, a stock broker? Fuck off, kid.”

“No, but I am somewhat of an expert in the commodities business, which you damn well know. I make it a point of being well informed.”

He snorted, casting a side long glace at the the small figure besides him. Small and underfed, she didn't stand much more than five foot; little for her species. But of course, she wasn’t quite done growing yet.

“Talk back like that to a client where you’re going, and you might get your tongue taken out. I don’t give a single fuck about your incidentals on the way here. From now on you'll be paid in cash. The type you'll be entertaining, as well as myself, prefer it that way."

She held her gaze on him, calculating. It gave him pause, as it was unyielding and strange against her youth; a piercing stare that weighed more than the handful of her years.

"Fine. What's your cut?"

The many eyed alien chuckled at her naivety, eyeing her. She certainly had guts for the human equivalent of a cockroach in the savage black labyrinth that was Omega.

"That depends entirely on you. Call it 'performance based compensation'. Perform like shit, one time jobs - and I take more. Snatch some well heeled-regulars, and well, we can negotiate. Don't worry that sweet little keratin head of yours. _Human_ girls are especially hard to come by, so you can expect to be fought over."

He turned to face her, setting all four of his glinting black eyes on her as his mouth split into a sharp yellow smirk. "You would be _amazed_ at what certain Volus would pay even for a common blue ass, let alone something exotic, _young._ Fortune will undoubtedly be yours, even with my fee…That is, if we can start a bidding war. I imagine you’re untouched?"

She made a curt nod of her head, her eyes going elsewhere. 

“You will be examined, you are aware.”

“I know.”

He smiled unfalteringly, the strobing light glancing off his offset teeth as he considered his words. She shifted her eyes back and glared back at him, her glance hard and unmoving, divulging nothing. Deep in her pocket, a blue stone pained her, its hard cut facets pressing against her thigh. She shifted her weight. "Now," he remarked, bouncing both palms on the table, "What say you we drink to your new life?"

“And we agree. 50,000?”

“50,000 _to start._ ”

His eyes flicked from her unlined face, to the valuable shade of her hair - their species most exotic feature, to her non-existent bustline, and down the long trail of the legs that promised a few more inches in height down the line. Long legs were good - Salarians liked that, and Vorcha found human breasts obscene. She looked thin; gamine. It made no matter. For the type that would be buying her company, they always seemed to like them that way. 

“Red hair and youthful. Ideal in this business, Ms. 'I’m in the commodities business'." He leaned in and smiled so wide he could see the platinum caps on his teeth. “You’re about _to be the commodities business,_ my dear.” 

His eyes passed again to her hair. He reached out and grasped a few strands, pinching them beneath his fingers. He produced a small eye piece, zooming in to view the color in high fidelity. “If I find out this is dyed, you _will_ be sorry.”

She didn’t move a millimeter, though he was inches from her face. His foul breath steamed her nose.

“It’s not. Are you finished.” she asked in a way that was more threat than question. He smiled widely again, capped teeth glinting, putting his hands up and nodding as he backed away from her. “Listen, you can’t blame me for asking, and this does concern your immediate wealth, my dear. All I’m saying is that the type of people that are into this….ah, _market_ , well, they like when everything matches. And -”

His eyes flicked darkly over her.

“...certain very connected Salarians are particular about-” He looked back at her hair again, rolling over it from root to tip, surveying. She could practically see him counting the credits in his mind.

“.... _genetic rarities._ Don’t be shocked if they ask you for a sample of that. But don’t you dare give it away for free.”

Her eyes narrowed. She nodded curtly and averted her sight, pulling her arms into a cross at her chest. 

The Batarian tilted his near snarling, smirking head abruptly to the side and snorted almost gleefully. _Too easy_ , he thought, his ego overflowing. He turned his head, caught the eye of the bartender adjacent to them, one of his kin that he knew only too well, and nodded very quickly. Across the distance, the bartender tipped his head forward subtly, and began to move his practiced hands, catching the barely imperceptible blink of his accomplices' upper left eye - the finespun sign to fix the second drink with just a slip of extra effort _._

The alien interlaced his fingers tilting his head again in his oily way, drinking her in as she sat as still as stone, determined to keep her glance clean of his. "So running just isn't paying the bills anymore, eh? Got loftier goals in life, I take it. Yearning for more of a touch of luxury?" he pressed, his voice silky. She continued to glare at the blue dancers, the beat dropping low and tense. She watched as an asari with the most severe hip to waist ratio she had ever seen, dripping in glittering precious stones, climbed into an enormous cocktail glass. A tall turian woman stood beside her, statuesque and beautiful, wearing only paint and a jeweled mask cut from shining obsidian. She watched as the the turian poured champagne down the asari's breasts before a crowd of stone faced salarians, wordlessly offering up tips for more, one inexplicably taking notes. A small group of male turian officers clearly on shore leave lurked off to the side, mesmerized.

"Actually, I do. Ever since I got caught up selling Hallex off this rock, I haven't been able to leave."

"In over your head?" he chided, in a mockery of concern. Her eyes flicked to him, murderous. "Let's I don't have a lot of options for reassignment. And yes... I am tired of sleeping on floors."

Her drink seemed to appear on the table. The Batarian wrapped his fingers wryly around his glass without breaking his tensed stare with the young human, his lips still dancing in that awful smile."You want more than life can give, I take it?"

Her eyes turned and bored into him. "That's one way of saying it."

He chuckled acidly, raising his glass. "Then…to a new beginning."

She rolled those words over in her mind, looking past the bar, traveling over the writhing dance floor, through the window, and to a far flung yellow star. Slowly, she only nodded in agreement.

He tilted his glass back and drank deeply. After a moment of observation, she followed suit. His many eyes contemplated her, from the many slender fingers that wrapped around the tipped glass to the small lips that pursed rim which poured the poison into her body. She was already affected before she opened her eyes. Her small face and body flushed first with extreme heat, then quickly were overcome with paralyzing cold. She wavered in her seat, hands sluggishly reaching to steady herself amidst the spinning, blurred vestiges of her fading consciousness. The drug acted instantly and mercilessly, enacting unconsciousness in seconds.

"Shh…" He cooed, now fearless, pushing a thick brown finger against her lips – enough to push her rag doll body effortlessly against the seat. _So, so easy…_ His stained smile twisted, filthy teeth glinting, and whispered _"_ Don’t fall now. Your kind bruise easy, and we need you unblemished."

* * *

Reality returned to her in a supine fog.

She needed only to taste the air to know she was no longer in Afterlife. Daring not to open her eyes, she only listened, drawing a map with her senses.

Oily fabric beneath her, all around the harmonic purr of a corvette-class engine, the thick scent of filth and reconstituted oxygen, a shifting ruddy light gliding over her left eyelid from what could only be a small observation window. She sensed no bindings. They had expected her to have a lower tolerance. If there was more time, she would have smiled at that. Of the great many things she would go to learn and love and lose, if life gave her any true gift, it was the uncanny ability to make the join the impossible to the possible. 

A satisfied, bragging alien voice, seven meters away, the vibrations of his words cut by what sounded like a thin steel plate wall. He was pacing, distracted, excitedly recounting the details of his quarry to an unknown voice in the comm unit housed the next partition. She lay still, mastering herself through her breath, each lungful cleansing her gut of fear and her mind of doubt.

 _This is it._ She heard herself say, the stone in her pocket just beneath her fingers, almost in prayer.

 _Focus._ _Quiet...quiet your mind. Breathe._

_Count._

_Ten..._

The beating drum of her heart rendered down to a controlled metronome. Something whispered into her consciousness that this would call for a very specific rhythm. Perfection, and only perfection, was essential.

 _Nine...._ Moving not a hair else, her right eyelid slid open a millimeter and her eye rolled down, sighting in the position of her captor through the wall in the eye of her mind.

_Eight…._

She made the movement in a soundless slip, and was swallowed into shadows. _Seven….Six…._

"You're going to lose your mind Kharn. I know, I know, I can't believe it either...

_Five…._

“Yes, as Human as they come…small; _underage my friend, pure as Noverian snow…and yes. Red hair...”_

_Four…_

“No, no it’s clearly real _-_ _yes,_ you idiot I know they are practically bred-out in that ugly little species.”

_Three…_

“No, of course it’s a couple of Salarians, who else? ...A couple of council members and a doctor, I think….Yeah of course there were a few Volus in the mix, always are...yeah...those guys. No, I don’t like them either and they never pay on time…”

_Two_

“Are you fucking kidding me, you think I would waste this on _some broke Krogan_? Didn't even advertise - besides, they would tear her apart. Those smooth brained monsters would make her unusable...”

_One._

_“_ Listen, _regardless,_ we're going to be _very rich_ my friend, _very very rich_ …we're going to start a bidding war of unprecedented magnitude _-_ "

But when he rounded the corner, that yellow smile slid off straight off his face, landing heavily in the now frozen pit of his gut.

The cot was empty.

"…Yeah. Let me call you back."

He rapped his omnitool violently, snapping off the transmission in mid-conversation and killing the warm orange haze of its given light. His blood had turned to ice. His eyes flicked back and forth as something ominous crept into his veins. He made a conscious effort to push that irrational feeling deep, deep down. He knows it was this cell. He knows he set her down here, drugged and unmoving. His four eyes blazed, searching, brows furrowed, nostrils flared – he whipped his head this way and that, yet he remained rooted to where he stood in the darkened room.

The girl had vanished. 

He blinked all of his eyes and shook his head trying to knock sense into it. Reality was not fitting into feasibility. He looked again and yet his eyes did not betray him. He crossed the room, his boots rapping, his expression contorted into and in a flash he stormed to the cot, reaching.

_THWACK._

Blinding pain – the ceiling rushing away – falling and clatter. He boomed to the ground, leg crumpled and his head smashed into the brushed steel floor with a clang. Stunned, he tried to stand but only one leg worked - in numb shock he looked down to blood flowing from his leg. He couldn't move, he couldn't move - and like an animal he let out a scream in bloodcurdling fear ripenig to agony as he realized he couldn’t move his leg below the knee to stand, blood pouring in a geyser out of his ankle.

_"So.”_

He turned his head in abject horror. Beneath the platform of the cot came a small voice, but all he could see was the flash of a knife, and a barrel in his eyes. 

“Batarians _do_ have an Achilles tendon."

Like a pale demon from a fever dream, she lay wedged in a the nearly impossibly narrow shadow beneath the bed, her unblinking rain-colored eyes wide open, terrifying and clear.

"Wait – _NO!"_

Her finger fired. At that range, the Stiletto X detonated the back of his skull in a firework of gore. The blown out remainder of his skull hit the floor like a dropped stone, the rest painting the deck crimson. She wasted not a moment tucking the still hot gun into her waist and clawing her way out of the impossibly narrow space through a warm tide of Batarian blood. In a flurry of movement she flipped his still pliant corpse over, grabbed his arm and ripped off his omnitool. Her small hands snaked to search him expertly, lifting identification, credits, a picture of a mistress, a small vial of contraband drugs, a ring. All valuable, all useful in their own way. From a hidden pocket she extracted a small nondescript hacking device and unfolded it until its metal prongs were revealed, marrying it to the hard data port of the omni-device. His pathetic personal securities split open without a trace of protest. It was favorable; she had little time.

The omnitool fit her small forearm poorly, but it worked. She crossed the small room in stride, rounding the partition to his personal counsel – working as fast as her hands could move she hacked it and cobbled together a rudimentary bio-scan across the tiny vessel. Only two more slavers, Batarians again, in the cockpit. In normal circumstances, they would have heard the gunshot, but of course, the traffickers had sound-proofed their holding rooms to silence the screaming. 

She quickly wiped a rivulet of blood from her face. The girl leaned back and glanced out of the window, and watched the rust colored leviathan of Omega sliding away as the ship took relative altitude. Pulling her hood back over her hair, she scanned the ship's simple layout once more, took a sharp breath, wiped the blood from her trigger finger on her clothes, raised her pistol, and walked briskly out the bulkhead doors that opened to the next cycle of her life.

The small figure ghosted through the dark lit vessel, death wrapped in a young girl's flesh. The slavers were dead before they turned around, two point blank shots and a cockpit full of blood. She kicked the pilot out of his seat, his body collapsing wetly to the floor. She took the ship’s controls in her hands, still warm from his touch. The metal beneath her fingers humming, hot. She had flown before, but this time, the corpses aside, felt distinctly different.

She would turn the ship away sharply from Omega, vowing naively never to return, plotting a frenzied course out of the Attican Traverse as fast as she could, thinking for sure she would die as she blasted the ship through the mass relay while barely knowing the controls. The FTL field before her paused and glowed in a baptism of blinding, pure white.

She flew to Sol on stolen wings, her system, marked by the rings of Saturn and the small yellow sun that shone on the closest thing she could call a home.

It was already April there, and her birthday was coming soon. She was almost 17. In a few days time, she would eject the bodies, wipe the deck, and guide the ship to the first Alliance base she could find, to her only option. Nothing would stop her. Not this time. 

She told herself she would be the best. That she would change. That she would succeed where she was told her whole life she would fail. Survival had been against her odds since her parentless birth. Death seemed to lick at her down behind every door, so what the hell was the difference. It was the only constant in her life, better to make peace with it. She figured she might as well put her atypical education to good use. 

She decided in that moment, as the star fields blended like diamonds in the endlessness before her, that she would take back her name. The Batarian was right, it was a new beginning after all. Somewhere, a new day was breaking with a yellow sun soaring in dawn.

For the first time in her short life, she would come to use the name that was chosen for her years ago, when she was left to forge her own future.

Shepard.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this had a trailer, the song would be: https://open.spotify.com/track/4xBXxAe4SVhsRbbUC9jFXv?si=qsFo936KQCOUvNSup-4uuQ


	2. The Rookie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A disillusioned cop gets a lead. Alien meets alien in first contact.

" _I DON'T CARE_ if he's a Spectre, I can't just sit on my hands while this investigation grinds to a halt!"

He was fuming, facial plates flared, the cloven toes of his boots rapping hard against the floor as he paced. The other turian did not budge; three-fingered hands artfully folded over the carefully polished desk, his gold retinas in their black shroud narrowed. He had "lieutenant" in front of his name now, and that meant he didn't have to put up with any of Garrus Vakarian's insubordinate bullshit.

"Alright _detective_ ," hissed Tiber, not hiding his resentment, "Let's pretend for a moment that the council would actually give _you_ five minutes of their time. You have absolutely zero evidence that would hold up in-"

"Are we just ignoring visual evidence, now? _Is that protocol?_ " interrupted Garrus, whipping around, raising his hand, pleading yet enraged.

" _Control yourself!"_

"Saren and Benezia, _leaving Illium,_ _Omega,_ a dozen others! How much more do you want!? All those missing Asari, gone without a trace - _then spotted_ \- in frame after frame!"

Tiber leaned purposefully back in his chair, disgusted. He began to shake his head back and forth softly, not masking his derision.

"Ah yes, your _"evidence"._ Your golden little testimonials from every sanded out merc and murderer in the Traverse. Yes, Garrus, I'm _certain_ the Executor would just love to have the sweat of drug addict Krogan criminals sullying the witness stand. Evidence means nothing without credibility in court, _even you_ know that."

 _Even you_.

The words were like as if Tiber had struck him. A sharp silence punctuated the space between them. Garrus's shoulders fell, his eyes met the floor sinking, then looked back at his former squad mate with the sensation of something slowly breaking in his chest. That familiar hollow feeling of powerlessness had finally struck him down. After months of chasing, toiling, submitting forms and scheduling meetings that had gone nowhere, the system that was worshiped by his kind for supporting the heavy shield of justice, held up by the hand of every turian, had once again shut him out. He was a man ordered to drink from an empty glass, and its hollowness consumed him.

Garrus shook his head, running a hand over his crest, taking a labored breath. He opened his eyes and looked to Tiber, whose fingers were still folded, his eyes glaring across his fine new desk, the data pads upon it neatly stacked, pictures of his wife and children flashing pleasantly in their expensive frames, deliberately projecting the picture of a perfect life. Garrus stared at Tiber's manicured personal effects, at the gleaming desk he found so profoundly unsettling. The tastefully expensive palladium accents. The deliberate personal touches. It was not a functional object any longer. It was curated. Synthetic.

Theatre.

After 6 long years on the Citadel in Security Operations, he started to feel that was true of so much of his home away from Palaven. He felt himself, slowly but surely, poisoned by a seeping, ever present leak of cynicism that only seemed to grow as he felt the years of his youth slipping away. He was only twenty-nine, but somehow, he was starting to feel tired. And this - this was the final straw. This time it hurt.

How many times had they fought together, how many bullets fired, glasses emptied? And now, somehow, it meant less than nothing. Something had changed with the promotion. The conversations shifted, growing more stilted at first, then filtering out into non-existence. Like a good turian, Tiber had traded up his company to match his new station. That subtle, familiar gleam of superiority glassed Tiber's once pensive, calculating gaze, and in that moment Garrus felt his heart close to him in a sinking tide.

He exhaled sharply. Emotionally, and he knew it. It was already over, he had already had an outburst so what was one more indiscretion. Decorum didn’t matter anymore.

"You know they wouldn't grant me a warrant. You know, Tiber. _You know._ I tried four times. I know you saw the requests. I know they needed your approval." His voice was low, controlled, barely a whisper. He stared into his now superior's pupils, right down to his blue heart. "Maybe, if you look a little deeper into your hands, you could tell me why they would give me a case I couldn't solve?”

He knew the answer already. He had been tipped off. He was asking too many questions too bluntly, and for certain that his “emergency performance review” they were going to blindsight him with next Friday that had already been scored a failure. 

Tiber stared at him like a statue.

“That all, Vakarian?”

Garrus could only nod, knowing. He felt something in his chest burning as he turned his back, walking out of his office for the last time.

* * *

"You won't find Saren in the bottom of that glass, Vakarian."

Chellick slid into the bar stool next to the defeated officer, staring down the asari day-stripper who had been hovering near the young turian for a lap dance with a look that would have cracked glass. She got the hint and skittered off. Garrus chuckled darkly, unmoving.

"Even if he was, Chellick, I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing. I usually appreciate a good pep talk, but not today. The investigation is getting shit-canned. And so am I."

The two turians sat together in silence for a long moment while feminine limbs moved unnoticed around them. Chellick flicked his deep-set, emerald eyes to the young male beside him and observed. His glassy crest was just barely reaching its fullest length, his skin and plates still silvery, his eyes barely lined with age, familial-paint carefully drawn. He smelled like youth and gun oil; as serious as a veteran, and as naive as a child. Chellick turned his gaze away and sighed quietly, allowing himself to revisit that time in his life in private. He though had years to let the bureaucratic grindstone of C-Sec wear away his resolve. Seeing it erode someone who meant so well pained him with profound disappointment. He felt in recent years that politicking was only getting worse, and this was just another foot lower in that ever deepening pit. He swallowed, indicated for a drink, and began to talk.

"...Ok. _Listen_."

Garrus rolled an eye over, curious at his tone. He was always one to have a near extra sensory perception for vocal intonation. In truth, knew Chellick, the kid was an excellent interrogator because he listened rather than intimidated, picking up on things that slid past other's ears. Chellick stared ahead, painfully aware of the unethical nature of what he would say next.

"There may be someone more sympathetic to your aim than our 'glorious leaders'."

Garrus raised his brow plates, clasping onto every syllable. _"Oh?"_

Chellick nodded solemnly, drinking deeply from his glass, avoiding the younger turian's gaze. He was nostalgic for just a moment, remember how youth could make one so elastic. Depressed one moment, inspired the other.

"A friend in traffic control tipped me off…apparently…" he dropped his voice, his eyes fixating into nothingness as he chose his words carefully.

"…there’s someone here to see the council…a woman. Military. Saw something strange on Eden Prime, and allegedly… _Allegedly-"_ he hissed warningly, biting the word, glaring into Garrus's wide, had suddenly become alight with reignited life, "- ran across our favorite Spectre."

Garrus stared, unblinking, the gears of his mind tumbling over themselves, looking for all the world like he wanted to kiss the ground under Chellick's toes, but his mouth was too busy trying to form questions.

"Who is this _"she"_?" he asked softly, leaning in. Chellick drank again, shiftily looking around the room, gauging whether the lurking dancer could overhear them.

"A human. Alliance personnel."

" _Really?"_ he asked incredulously.

"Mmm. Ever hear the name Shepard?"

Garrus searched his mind, there was something familiar, maybe something he had heard in passing, but just out of reach of clarity. "Maybe, can't recall anything special."

"Well get used to it Vakarian, she's the lieutenant commander on that fancy new SR1. And apparently...well. She's in line for Spectre status."

Garrus stared incredulously. "You're kidding."

Chellick shook his head solemnly. The rumors surrounding the SSV Normandy SRI had torn through the turian rumor mill. The IES stealth system - what some considered the finest piece of turian engineering in decades, developed jointly with the humans was a sore sticking topic among Hierarchy loyalists. 

Garrus's brow plates raised in disbelief, staring hard at Chellick. " I didn't think there were any human Spectres." he said carefully.

"That's because there aren't. Frankly, a lot of people are pissed. You can only imagine the the screeching that is going on behind closed doors."

Garrus let out a dry laugh, searching Chellick's face. He wasn't ever one to exaggerate a story, but even still the details were unbelievable.

"So what's her story?"

Chellick shook his head. "Not much, apparently kind of a mystery. But no matter who you ask, you hear the same thing. Closed off. Quiet. Reputedly N7, so, you know, nothing serious." he added at the end, openly smirking at his young comrade's borderline ravenous expression.

"And she saw Saren? Actually saw him?"

"Mmm. That's the rumor. There's also the matter of one of us, dead - that Spectre Nihlus, remember him? Gone."

Their eyes met darkly.

"Saren?" whispered Garrus. Chellick shrugged, but his eyes said yes. 

"So.. _._ I mean, they’re human, so of course they are prone to-"

" _Well where is she?"_ interrupted Garrus, eyes burning.

"Sprits, c _alm down -_ I think dicking around in the Presidium, waiting for her hearing. If you run you might be able to catch-"

 _"-Shit!"_ Garrus practically jumped, stumbling out of his seat, nearly knocking over his glass. Once standing, he realized he was slightly drunker than he realized. 

"Hey! _You going to pay for that_!?" barked his bartender, pointing acidly to his half finished drink.

"Calm down, I got it." protested Chellick sourly, waving her in annoyance like he would an insect. Garrus started towards the door, moving before thinking as he tended to do, his pulse pounding, until he stopped dead and turned around, amazed at his own stupidity.

"Chellick!" he called back, turning to stop and gaze at him quizzically. Chellick looked over his shoulder, meeting his gaze.

"What's she look like?"

Chellick laughed out loud, genuinely amused at him.

"I don't know, a human!"

Garrus narrowed his eyes, "Oh come _on_." he demanded, causing Chellick to snicker dryly at his eagerness. "Not exactly the kind of human you can miss," he called, catching Vakarian's eye a touch belligerently, and then, just to provoke him, "Red fringe - or, _fur_ \- _hair?_ That stuff they have on their head. She's with a bigass Krogan, in case you're blind."

But Garrus was already out the door by his last syllable. Chellick settled back into his glass, shaking his head, but smiling with his eyes. He sighed once more, worried, and drained his glass.

He felt heavy. He inwardly prayed that he had made the right decision.

* * *

The presidium was empty and Garrus was running on fumes.

His calves were killing him, the alcohol coursing through his blood not exactly assisting. He felt dehydrated, having speed-walked throughout the entire perimeter of the massive park, feeling like a complete ass, desperately searching for a decidedly non-descript human female with red hair and a Krogan. Adrenaline and slight panic were taking him; after a quick, fruitless peek through the lower wards, he could feel himself gritting his teeth and caught a fast transit to the Citadel Tower in a last ditch effort to find something he wasn’t even sure about the more he ran the details over and over in his head. He stumbled out of the taxi, still a bit dizzy, but caught himself, turned a corner and –

BANG. 

\- slammed directly into Executor Pallin.

His bleary sight focused. All at once, soul crushing embarrassment, anger at his own immeasurable stupidity, and a whole string of turian swears coursed through his mind, but thankfully, did not reach his mouth. 

The Executor brushed his fine clothes off sharply, as if they had been doused in filth. He glowered murderously at Garrus, then caught his scent, and spat dangerously, " _Spirits_ , officer, are you _drunk_?"

For the second time that day, he stood in silence feeling he was effectively already fucked. So he let the words tumble out unvarnished.

"Not drunk enough, Executor," breathed Garrus, adrenaline flowing through him; the disappointment of that day, his investigation, his entire career, his father, justifying him into feeling dangerously, stupidly brave, "Not nearly enough."

The Executor’s brow plates shot to the top of his head incredulously. He looked at the slightly disheveled, panting officer before him, stricken dumb by his unfathomable lack of respect. He snorted, shaking his head in complete disbelief, eyes gliding over the paint on Garrus's face with utter shame for this idiot's known and impeccably respected clan. He could not believe this was Castis Vakarian’s son. 

"You are absolutely _unbelievable_ Vakarian. Get out of my sight." He snarled, going to move around him, but Garrus sidestepped and stood in his path. The Executor's expression widened in abject disbelief.

"I said _get out of my way!_ " he spat, hot with rage as he pushed the clearly insane, smaller turian aside with a shoulder he had not had to use since long before the appointment of his position. Pallin stormed off towards the base of the tower, but Garrus followed on his heels.

"No! I need a word!" he demanded fiercely, feeling as if he were having an out of body experience. He barely recognized his own voice.

"I'm on my way to a briefing! It can wait until after I _court marshal you!"_

He called desperately, "I have evidence linking Saren to-"

"GARRUS!" he roared, halting in his tracks, whirling around and rearing on the upstart with vengeance. He bored down into Garrus, but he didn't flinch.

"You need to listen to me. Listen, _I don’t care anymore._ I don’t care about decorum - rank, punish me if you have to but this? This has ramifications. People - people are getting hurt. Saren _\- yes Saren -_ is hiding something! You have to - you have to stall the council!" he bitterly plead, fierce eyes searching the bone white paint of the Executor's face which had melted from livid anger to disbelief. Pallin snorted out a painful sigh,

"Stall the council? Don't be ridiculous." He had read his reports, searched the tiny fraction of data the young turian had scavenged from only the most unreliable and illegal sources, and frankly he was not impressed. He was accusing a Spectre of treason, and incredible accusations needed incredible evidence. And now, he stood insulted. Pallin's plated mouth spit out the words he wished he would have had the foresight to lose weeks ago back when the decision had already been made.

"Your investigation is _over_ , Garrus."

The world fell as quiet as the void, and as if through someone else's eyes, Garrus watched his better simply turn his back and walk away, disappearing past Sur’Keshi cherry blossom's rose colored glow. He lowered his eyes for a moment, closing them, his nerves so shot that he could no longer feel a thing. Breathing, reconciling, he surrendered to the moment. He watched cherry petals, tiny and fragile, that used to bring him the smallest bit of cheer as he passed them on his way home glide soundlessly past his toes in the artificial breeze, feeling nothing but shame. Slowly, he forced himself into movement, accepting defeat, and turned to leave.

The eyes of a small alien staring rather intensely up at him stopped him instantaneously. He froze - instincts holding him still, his mind halting.

He blinked a few times, focusing - his visor going to work to zoom in and enhance her facial features. It took him a few seconds, before it slowly dawned on him, the possibility of who she was slowly descending through the emotional turmoil of the day, before he even registered the mutinous looking Krogan and a dark featured human male flanking her left and right. His mind slowly whispered the name into his ear, urging him to react, to move.

Strange grey retinas pierced him, surveying him, as she cocked her head slightly to the side and focused in on him, their eyes locking. 

“Bad day at work, officer?” she asked curiously, her voice was deeper than he expected for the size of her. He had heard humans could be unexpected like that.

“....You could say that. Yes.”

His eyes flicked to the bright red hair falling past her shoulders, nearly the color of a summer plum back on his homeworld. Then back to her eyes, a strange, mercury-grey foreign to his species.

“But that might just change.”

The alien cracked a smile with her mouth, as her species did. He noticed her eyes flickered with amusement, warming.

“Oh? And why is that? Listen, I have precisely 6 minutes before I need to be somewhere, so please, be brief.”

He mastered himself, and forcibly relaxed his anxiety, the alcohol in his blood lubricating that first step down a path he had never tread before. She did not quit her gaze.

"Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren, and I need only one minute, if you’ll have me …"

  
  



	3. The Alien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much can you take until you snap?

_No,_ he thought as he looked at her, eyes lingering on the unusual shade of her hair. He felt mental clarity rush back to him with a surge of adrenaline. _She was not a human you could simply miss._

"Ok, Officer Vakarian," said she, her sharp gaze still on him, lips gliding easily over the foreign edges of his name, "Anything I should know about?"

Garrus exhaled, beyond tired, but something about the way her tongue formed his name was pleasant to the ear. He detected a subtle play of accent wash over his identifying syllables, in a way that somehow lessened the knot forming between his shoulders. He tried to snap his brain back to reality - realizing he needed to stop fixating on her voice and get to his point. He was so distracted; he chastised himself inwardly for being tired and more than a little still inebriated. Yet, had he been a fraction more sober, he would be too mortified to speak. Surely she had seen his tantrum, but he had no more care left to waste.

"Saren's a Spectre, most of his activities are classified. I couldn't find anything solid. Solid enough for C-Sec or the council that is, but there is something there." His eyes slid to the distance, seeing far past the Citadel Tower's graceful arches. " _I know_ he's up to something."

Her eyes narrowed at his words as she nodded slowly, the color catching the light, alien to him, guarded.

"Well, that's quite a claim for having 'nothing solid', officer." The way she spoke struck him. Direct, but free of condescension. A markedly different thing than he was used to as of late. He could feel her observing him, searching the very paint upon his face. Looking at the hints of his underclothing beneath his C-Sec issued armor, his weapon, his identifying marks, the shape of his crest, the colors in his plates and skin. Sizing him up, remembering him for later. He couldn't blame her, as it was precisely what he would have done. He knew his argument was weak, he would have been just as skeptical. He knew this sparring match would be won based an assessment of his credibility, and he was well aware of how poorly he looked at that moment.

He took in a breath, thinking, he set his gaze off in the distance, trying to find the words that eluded his still somewhat lubricated mind. "It's as I think you humans say…I feel it in my gut."

Shepard's features betrayed her as they shifted into a subtle smile, her brow knitting a little in slight surprise, her head cocking now to the other side. He logged this minute gesture away in his mind; a potential tell.

"And do you make a habit out of trusting your gut?"

He once again caught her grey eye, and they locked into each other. He could still feel her reading him.

"I think instincts are felt for a purpose. I'm a detective commander, if I can't trust myself, well…" he trailed, the harmonics in his voice drifting off. She watched him, pressing her words next carefully, but firmly together.

“How do you know my name?”

He nodded thoughtfully, it was an excellent question. She was no fool.

“Someone I trust mentioned you might be here. This someone says you may have seen something... _interesting_ regarding our mutual friend Saren.”

She could tell he was still slightly drunk, yet he was lucid and making sense. She thought about this for a minute, taking it in with his words, and the tone behind them. She sensed truth there.

“Allegedly.” said the little human flatly, looking at him in a very pointed way. He looked back at her, his mind probing, seeking, until he heard it somehow buried deep in her voice, the way she said that word. _There. There it is. An in._ He thought, nodding slowly.

“Yes, _allegedly._ But whatever _may_ have happened there,” he ventured carefully, still looking at her directly in the eye,“...All I know is I had my investigation blocked at every turn, by every conceivable step in process...and I have reason to believe I will be out of a job by the end of the week. Today’s...missteps not withstanding.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Are you telling me they're firing you?”

He nodded, crossing his arms subconsciously. “Yes. It hasn’t happened yet...but as I understand it, it’s a certainty.

A moment of silence hung between them as the looked at each other, each trying to search the other out. Very carefully, she said at last, "I don’t mean to generalize, but you may be the first turian I've ever heard put intuition before process."

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was not that. He snorted a raspy chuckle staring off into the distance. "I see you’ve clearly met my father.” 

She laughed at this, genuinely entertained.

"Commander, I really hate to interrupt," the man to her left retorted, sounding not at all as though he was truly sorry to interrupt, "But our hearing is in one minute."

Shepard's smile vanished "Yes...That’s right." She looked back to Garrus, searching his face. “Well officer, you asked for a minute and I gave you five. I am afraid I have somewhere to be and... I _am_ sorry about your investigation.”

After a moment that felt like she had more to say, but stopped herself, she tipped her head in his direction, acknowledging him with a small nod. She then turned and started down the long passage, the misanthropic looking Krogan and the visibly annoyed human male following in her wake.

"Shepard."

She turned, looking back at him once more. "Please...I don’t know what you’re going to say in there exactly, but...maybe they'll listen to you."

She smiled a bit grimly.

"Now, wouldn't that be something."

And then she turned again, and was gone.

The turian lingered there for a moment, watching as she disappeared into the Tower. The massive old krogan turned just before they disappeared, and met his eye, gave him a hard, inscrutable sidelong look before they disappeared.

Orange plastic and buzzing. He felt his omnitool exploding in messages, bringing him back to the present. He didn’t need to look to know he was being called back to the office. He knew his things were probably already gathered into a box. He flipped through his messages, correct - until he saw something much more ominous flashing ‘urgent’ in his unreads.

* * *

"You've clearly already made your choice. I won't waste my breath."

"Captain, there is no need for that. And once more - the council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren Arterius and the Geth. Ambassador Udina, your petition to have him disbarred from the Spectres has been denied."

"...I'm glad to see justice was served."

Shepard had not taken her furious gaze from Saren since the moment he came through the comm. He shone tall, angular, and despicably proud though the hologram. Nihlus's exploded face flashed across her mind. Blue turian blood slipping through her fingers as she tried to hold his ruined skull together, in vain. She bore into Saren, in quiet disbelief this was the same proud turian she had met years back when Anderson had given the very first hints she was being considered for Spectre status. Now they stood worlds apart as enemies. She would have his jugular for what he did to her mentor Nihlus. It was just a matter of time. 

"This meeting is adjourned."

The Council, straight and dignified besides the traitor among them, vanished. The silence was palpable and deadly.

"It was a mistake bringing you into that hearing, Captain! You and Saren have too much history. It made the council question our motives." Exploded Udina, whirling around to Anderson, his fists clenched. He was ensconced in a thin layer of sweat. 

"I _know_ Saren. He's working with the geth for one reason – to exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk. Every world we control is in danger...Even Earth isn't safe."

"They, _and this,_ won't help us." snapped Shepard as she shifted her gaze from Anderson to Udina. They were arguing like children and yet she had to say in the argument. The ambassador looked at her crossly, folding his arms, his fist hovering conspiratorially near his mouth.

" _You_ \- listen to me. As a Spectre, he's virtually untouchable. We need to find some way to expose him."

"What about that investigator…Garrus?” She said, turning her her eyes turned to Anderson. She looked back at Udina, hiding her contempt. “We saw someone, a turian, arguing with the executor."

"What's this all about?" Udina bore down on Shepard. She took a deep breath, calming herself, keeping her facial features very still.

"We ran into him on the way in here. C-Sec...or, _ex_ C-Sec that is. He's being shut down. He was arguing with Executor Pallin, asking for more time for his investigation into Saren. It sounded like he was close to something, but we were interrupted and I didn’t get all the details."

"Do you know where to find this Garrus?" asked Anderson, hope woven into his calm baritone.

"No. We met just prior to the hearing. Sounds like he’s in the process of being fired. Might be long gone by now, with all these…” she waved her hand in disgust, _"politics._ I certainly wouldn’t want an Executor and a Spectre on my bad side. Whatever he has on Saren, he didn't get it through legal means, hence the firing. I don't know what information he has, but it could lead somewhere. It's clear they won't take us seriously."

Udina's eyes grew a bit darker, age lines recessing deeply in his scowling face. He glanced temperamentally from Shepard to Anderson, who surveyed him with a careful eye. Finally, as if spitting out poison, he remarked:

"Fine. Not like a turian to buck the rules. I have a contact in C-Sec who might be able to help us track this Garrus down. His name is Harkin."

Anderson's face contorted to somewhere between laughing and swearing.

" _Harkin?_ Forget it. They suspended him last month. Drinking on the job." His eyes met Shepard's and he looked at her a touch sternly. "I won't waste my time with that loser."

"Oh you won't have to," shot Udina acidly."I don't want the Council using your past history as an excuse to ignore anything we turn up. Shepard will handle this."

Shepard's eyes flicked to Anderson's, which were as hard as bark. She could feel him considering, measuring. "The ambassador is right. I need to step aside." he said at last.

"Yes, now I need to take care of some _business_. Captain, meet me in my office later." Said Udina pointedly to Anderson. He marched purposefully out of the room, blending in perfectly with the colorless floor. Anderson turned his head away from Shepard's questioning eyes and the coals of disappointment within them. In silence, the Captain lamented the unselfish cloud which had followed him his whole life. For now, she would have to wait.

_"Captain?"_

"Not now, Shepard," blocked Anderson, sensing her question. "Now Harkin's probably getting drunk in Chora's Den. It's a dingy little club in the lower wards."

"What about him being a "drunken loser?"

"I suppose at this point it couldn't hurt to go talk to him. Just be _careful -_

 _There's that paternalism again,_ she thought, sighing quietly.

\- I wouldn't exactly call him reliable. Good luck, I'll be over in Udina's office if you need anything else."

" _Captain."_

"Not now. And _please_ try and make sure that krogan you picked up doesn't trash my ship."

Her superior straightened himself, pulling on his well worn mask of authority in the place of his true self, the man she knew. With a curt nod he dismissed his lieutenant commander, her question still burning in his shadow. He faded away, leaving her alone with Kaidan in the cavernous hall. Her companion drew closer, his handsome face drawn in and serious as the grave.

"Permission to speak freely."

"Proceed."

He shifted his weight, fidgeting over the words. "Well, we have already dealt with one drunk today. So there’s that.”

“Guy’s getting fired for asking questions, Kaiden. I would already be twice as shitfaced.”

“I don’t know about that. But I’ll leave it there. Secondly…”

“Yes?”

“...Do you really trust this krogan? I'm not so sure about inviting a dangerous killer on board. It seems… _ah_...sketchy."

She stared at him dryly."I see you've been spending time with Lieutenant Williams."

"Ok, no, not _like that_ , but you have to consider –"

On any other day, she might have been able to appreciate his hesitation, his feedback. She knew open communication made for finer leadership, and although she had learned to practice this theory, she felt the hiss of contempt firing her gut on this particular day. There was simply no time for this nitpicking, and resources were not on their side. Not after touching the beacon and the strange red dreams that had been nightly invading her mind where dreams should have been.

She was getting sick of having her judgment dissected and examined in microscopic intervals by everyone around her, as if she had just crawled mouth-breathing out of boot camp. They were fighting a losing battle and it hadn’t even begun. Shepard already dreaded the river of shit she was going to get from Ashley once she returned to the Normandy with a ton and a half of krogan merc towing behind her, she didn't need it from Kaidan too. They went back a long way, but at times she could clearly see the limitations of his thinking. Any other time, she may have gone risk-averse and agreed. But not now. Now with what she knew. What they were dealing with was something entirely and all together different. 

"Alenko," she interrupted quietly, "Do you know what the word "Spectre" means? Saren, on top of being one of the most tactically refined military minds in Citadel space has access to intel classified at the highest order _and_ the most advanced weapon resources _to date._ He's got, effectively a black budget, _legal immunity_ , and he's flying around in a goddamned dreadnaught-class ship. Do I trust Wrex entirely? Not at all. Would I hire one of the last known living Krogan battle-masters to fight for us if I had even the slightest chance?"

Kaidan's dark eyes widened, his pained face turning dark red. 

"Yes, Alenko. The answer is _yes_. Luckily for us, the only payment he's seeking is a pound of some gangster's flesh and that is a currency that we can deal in. Have I made that logic clear?”

"...Yes ma'am."

Her features softened. But she kept her tone.

"Good. Now let's go find us a drunk and that turian."

* * *

"These places always hire krogan bouncers," rumbled the enormous headhunter to Shepard as they walked in, "I guess we're a status symbol. Make the place look fancy."

Eyes followed and heads turned as the motley, mismatched trio made their way across the cesspool of drunks. It was full of men, the most profane of alcoholics who pawed lasciviously at asari serving girls as they flitted about. It was dark, the deep bass and the low-lit lamps deadening the senses to better the flow of credits from accounts. Her eyes scanned the space like a predator drone; there were a lot of faces, but it took her only a second to zero in on the loudest, most belligerent asshole in the room – a balding troll in disgraced C-Sec blues occupied with trying to wrestle a bottle out of a server's hands.

Shepard cut purposefully to him, Kaidan shadowing her closely, but she signaled for him to wait. She walked right up to the man, reclining in a dilapidated booth, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. His watery eyes traveled over her body, trying to discern the anatomy beneath her armor as he shook his head, clicking his liquored tongue in approval.

"Goddamn _girl,_ I like that hair. Don’t see that much." he said, eyes hovering on the top of her head.

Her eyes narrowed into malicious dark slits.

"Where's Garrus?" she asked, her voice dangerously level.

"GARRUS! _Vakarian?_ HA! Is that poor idiot still trying to nail Saren?"

"Maybe. Seen him lately?"

Harkin laughed voraciously, directly in her face little boozy spit flecks flying out. Hitting her cheek. Grazing her ear. He set the bottle down and looked up at her incredulously.

"Look around and tell me how many Turian assholes do you think exactly there are around here? 'Seen him lately' Is he the one with the face paint ,and the claws, and the stupid head-thing? Oh wait, doesn’t really narrow it down, does it?" He looked eagerly at her, mouth wide in a grin as he sought her face for shock. To his extreme disappointment, she casually nodded, looking away as if carefully considering what he said. 

"Harkin," she asked softly, picking up his bottle, surveying it clinically as she turned it in the light. Of course he was a mid-shelf whiskey guy. _Of course._

"Do you know how many pounds of pressure it takes to perforate the human eye?”

The krogan looked on, amused at this little exchange.

“...More if applied with a blunt object of course...because the sclera is much more resilient than one would think. Gummy, almost. _Tough._ But if you have something with a good point – "

She smashed the bottle. He flew back in his seat, his fumbling arms instinctively raised to cover his face. Silence snapped through the room. Shepard slowly turned to Harkin, her eyes staring into him, the ragged glass shiv glittering in her hand.

"Well, I don’t think you want to find out. Now. Again. Where's Garrus?"

* * *

They cut past the cold blue tableau of the upper wards. White reflections illuminated the hard floor in silver pools, striking passing strangers in pale flashes as the three fighters followed the observation windows streaking down the narrow hall. Tucked in a dead end lay the Med Clinic, marked by a banded door beneath a neon arrow. Without hesitation, Shepard passed her hand along the smooth plate of the access panel. The unassuming door slid open.

Violence struck, sudden and thunderous.

"I didn't tell anyone I swear!" screamed the doctor, her sweat and tears plastering henna rivers of frayed hair down her face, contorted in terror.

"Drop her!" Shepard's pistol flew up, but as if out of thin air a flash of blue and silver, steel, and a raised Karpov. 

From nowhere, a shot blasted microns past the doctor's head, collapsing her attacker onto the blood splattered floor. Shepard whipped her head around; it was the turian. Mercenaries exploded out of the dark corners of the clinic, the doctor threw herself to cover as charges ignited the air. Covered by a storm of Wrex's suppressive fire, Shepard charged hard to the right, slid over a pass through and lunged at her mark in a blur of fury. Hair flying, her omnitool unfolding like a sword, the vanguard smashed her arm down in a magnificent blow to completely obliterate the skull beneath her. The turian flashed far left in a cobalt dash, detonating the throat of a gunman who lunged towards Michele as he dropped to shield her between himself and the wall. A lunging attacker rocketed from the shadows to the window in a biotic hurricane as Kaidan, glowing near-blinding blue, easily smashed him into the shatterproof glass like a ragdoll.

"Clear." glowered Wrex, sounding a bit bored. Garrus helped the doctor to her feet, steadying her with his free hand, checking her for injury, "Dr. Michele, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm ok, thanks to you. All of you." She looked to each of them, wiping the tears still stinging her face. Garrus turned to her, helping her stand; he could see she was in shock. He quickly turned to Shepard, who stood examining the bodies. "Perfect timing, Shepard. Gave me a clear shot at that bastard, but we need to get her out of here."

"You took him down clean - but you need to explain exactly what just happened here." She turned her head to Dr. Michele and locked eyes with her. The doctor looked wide-eyed at Garrus, who was eying her pointedly. “You can trust them,” he said, reassuring her. She nodded, still shaking. 

"They work for Fist...They wanted to shut me up, to keep me from telling you about the Quarian. "

Shepard's brow furrowed inquisitively, "The Quarian? What quarian?"

Michele looked to her gravely. "Yes. A few days ago a quarian came by my office. She had been shot, but she wouldn't tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. She asked me about the Shadow Broker. She said she had information to trade in exchange for a safe place to hide."

_"And?"_

The doctor sighed painfully, her gaze falling to the ground in profound regret.

"I put her in contact with Fist, he's an agent for the Shadow Broker."

Garrus's facial plates shifted, calculating.

"Chloe, why didn't you tell me?"

She kept her eyes down, saying nothing. Garrus removed his hand, his voice growing stern. "If you had, you would know that now he works for Saren, and the Shadow Broker isn't too happy about it."

The doctor laughed bitterly, still avoiding the Turian's eyes. "Fist betrayed the Shadow Broker? _Quelle bêtise_ , even for him."

 _"Pas aussi stupide que vous."_ said Shepard acidly. Garrus’s translator whirred to catch up, but he could tell by the way she spoke that whatever dialect they were speaking was fluent to her. It explained the very slight accent. _"Où est-il_?" Michel hung her head low, utterly shamed.

"In a back room at Chora's Den, last I heard." she said, switching back to their standardized tongue so the rest could understand them.

Shepard shook her head, the day was getting stranger and stranger. She looked to Garrus, who looked back at her. "This quarian must have something good if it's worth betraying the Shadow Broker." She nodded and glanced at Wrex, who stood thinking in the shadows. "I think it's time we payed Fist a visit."

"Good,” he retorted, “I'm going to skin him alive."

Garrus eyed the Krogan pointedly, putting two and two together. "The Shadow Broker hired a krogan bounty hunter to take him out. I'm guessing that's you."

Wrex snorted, his red eyes glowing with sarcasm, not justifying him with a comment.

Kaiden shook his head, which was nervously cradled in his fingers, as he massaged an oncoming migraine in vain. "This just got complicated didn't it?" he asked, visibly pained. Shepard nodded, compartmentalizing her worry that his implant wasn’t causing him pain. She looked to Garrus, who had begun to pace. Finally, he stopped, and turned back to her. 

"Look Shepard, this is your show...But this is getting out of hand. Listen - I want to catch Saren as bad as you do. And at this point, I’m out of options...I’m coming with you."

She tipped her head back, looking guardedly at the silver-skinned alien, incredulous. "Just like that? You don't even know me."

Something hard to place crossed his eyes. Even after years of looking at them, the emotions his kind were still subtle to her. Unknowable, and at times impossible to translate. 

"I know enough to guess that I'll get closer to Saren with you, than I ever will, here. I couldn't find the evidence I needed in my investigation, but I knew even then what was really going on. The whole thing was a sham. I didn’t want to see it at first, I still believed - I hoped the process would work....but it was always dead in the water. I had my hands tied behind my back the whole time."

She surveyed him carefully, feeling almost pity. He touched his fingers to his forehead in thought, somewhere else, before catching himself and straightening himself.

"Listen, when I start something, I finish it, no matter the cost.”

He looked back at her, directly in her eyes. She felt a deep well of anger there. He was oddly passionate for a turian, but that, she imagined, could be partially chalked up to youth and the disappointment of having his back against a wall.

“- He's a traitor to the Council and a traitor to my people. Let me join you commander, and I promise you, you won't be sorry. I'll get that bastard if it kills me."

The two strangers looked at each other for a long moment, the others seeming to fade away from them. There, standing across the distance of that cold room, they sensed something in each other, familiar yet indefinable. He saw the answer slowly emerge and form in her eyes before she said the words, and he knew that right then, his path in life, so carefully planned for him, had just veered beautifully off course.

"You know what... _fine._ We need all the help we can get.”

His heart rose. The moment, after that day, those weeks suddenly felt utterly surreal to him.

She exhaled deeply, praying she was making the right decision. The light bounced off her hair as she ran her fingers through it, betraying a quiet sort of desperation as she looked at him, already wondering how she was going to explain all this to Anderson.

“Welcome aboard the Normandy, Garrus. Effective immediately."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smash cut black to the beats of the opening lines of "Two Shots" by Vita E More.
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/1foAPbRzDltUdOP1jn4Pjt?si=48J2o8u8QnSRG4ihkwV_iQ


	4. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rule is broken.

_A sparrow, dead and splayed besides her nest, holding a single snow white egg. A clear blue sky with two strange moons, hovering oddly over a dense forest into which she could not see. A horned toad fighting a salamander in a pool of thick blue liquid, congealing black at the edges. A beautiful silver weapon, long angles, edges, grace. She reached for it, but it slipped away from her fingers. She looked for it as it slid away, pushing aside heavy black curtain; a mirrored orb stared back at her, suspended in mid-air, like an eye which bore no reflection. She grew unsettled – it could see her. It was alive. And then blood, blood everywhere. Muscle and blood, circuitry and fear, overwhelming - an awful roar. Pulling, pulling, as if to sea, a forest shoreline fading…_

* * *

Her eyes opened.

She did not have to look at the time to know it was unreasonably early. She rolled in the chair she had fallen asleep away from the desk, placing her hands up to her eyes to press away the sleep. She was soaked through in sweat, hair plastered down in slick tendrils on her face. Another nightmare. Pained, she wiped the moisture from her brow with the crook of her elbow and exhaled, eyes closing back shut and begging for more sleep. A sliver of anxiety crept into her gut but she suppressed it with a breath. She had been dreaming something important, but it evaporated, leaving only her back in agony as she had slept leaned up against a cold desk in the bowels of engineering for her few meagre hours of rest.

Shepard’s eyes focused to the dark and she looked over at Tali's narrow figure, curled up like a cat, her small chest rising and falling rhythmically. She had finally taken to sleep only after they had talked nearly all night, brainstorming and dissecting the recording of Saren along with the dead Geth's other memories until they passed out from exhaustion, practically mid sentence. Not exactly the most typical of protocol, but Shepard never in her life felt more than time was of the essence. Quietly, she sidestepped the reality that inwardly she was terrified.

Shepard pulled the thin quilt laminating Tali a little higher up on the Quarian’s tightly suited shoulders, wondering how anyone could find engineering, where the very walls vibrated with the hum of massive tantalus drive core – too quiet. Yet she already knew the answer; Tali had explained that absolute silence on her people’s ships, some of which were still chugging along at the ripe old age of 300, was a death sentence. 

It had been three weeks since picking her and the other two aliens up on the Citadel, and since then two women grew close immediately. The mysterious little quarian behind her mirror-mask had proven in the back alley where they found her that she was far more dangerous than she appeared. For such a small thing, she was an artist with a shotgun - and a genius with an omnitool. 

Once aboard, Tali had gone to work immediately, ingraining herself with the other engineers who grew to adore her, the human technical team completely smitten and humbled by her prowess. Tali had established herself quickly, working long hours scanning odd planets and passing debris with a quarian eye for detail that was unrivaled in the rest of the crew. In those three weeks alone she had netted them 700,000 credits in salvage and rare mineral claims. Joker remarked that if she asked to stop the ship one more time he would pull her mask off and cough on her. Tali rebuked that this would require him to get out of his chair without getting a stress fracture first. Shepard smiled to herself, remembering the exchange. The Normandy was finally starting to feel like she had a real crew.

Shepard stole a small stroke of the roughspun silk on the little Quarian's hood as she slept, listening to the whispers of breath sifting through her air filter. Her heart gave a pang of emotion as she saw her own face reflected in Tali's mask, which, like her own features, didn’t have the luxury of giving much away. She knew what it was like to be a girl around that age, on the run and alone. She wondered if Tali was lonely, if she missed her home, to what extent she had been offended when, not even a week aboard the ship, the baseless rumor spread among certain human staff that she was a spy and an intel thief. Shepard had doled out harsh punishments for this, but it only served to backfire in places. The humans were starting to feel neglected, a rift forming as their Commander seemingly added an ever growing collection of aliens to the ship. Even among a ship meant to unite human and turian diplomacy the interspecies mistrust among many was palpable. She had started to doubt herself, perhaps she was showing the aliens too much favor - but she pushed these thoughts out of her head. It wasn’t her fault that no one else was rising to the occasion; and that the Saren problem was cutting across species divides. 

It was hard for the newly appointed captain not to see herself in a touch in the little engineer with her masked face, cut off and alone in the dark universe.

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya had given them their first big break with the information salvaged from her geth memory core. With her testimony backed up by hard data concretely linking Saren to the Geth, the council had stripped him of his Spectre status and he had fled. That same day they made her the first human Spectre, Anderson gave her the ship, and everything changed. All she could do to not go insane from anxiety over the new responsibilities was pretend her feelings didn’t exist, throwing herself into the work of finding - and destroying - Saren.

The truth was, something inside her had changed since touching that Prothean stone, a stupid decision that could have gotten her killed. She had been having the worst migraines of her life, which gave way to dark worries. She had slowly come to believe that the beacon on Eden Prime had transmuted her already draining nightly sleeplessness into even more of a chaotic chore as the urgent task to find the Conduit haunted her thoughts. And now with the double threat of occupational and existential stress, it was pushing her to her limits. But she was a leader now; no one could know.

She dared not utter a word of it to Chakwas. That woman seemed severe enough as it was. She avoided Kaidan religiously, feeling immense guilt, knowing he deserved better of her. Yet, she knew he would see right through her, down to the fear seeping through her mind. It was happening weekly now, the strange inky dreams and then her eyes would open, her body fully awake, while her mind thirsted for the sleep that gave her brain an escape from a never ending onslaught of choices.

The council's skeptical faces flashed before her eyes. She seared with sudden anger. The white-painted face of the turian councilor materialized in her mind's eye. _"Our judgement must be based on facts and evidence…not wild imaginings and reckless speculation…"_

She sat up with a start, eyes focused, fists clenched, staring intensely at the floor but not truly seeing it. 

Sleeping was useless, she decided, but starting work early was not. Rising to her full height, she pushed her thick carmine hair out of her eyes, carelessly bundling it into something of a chignon, her mind entirely elsewhere. There was so much work to do. She couldn’t just sit here in the dark, thinking, ruminating. The commander grabbed her codex and slipped out the door soundlessly, leaving Tali to her rest.

In truth, she had loved being a soldier. The structure, the constant work, the beating drum of duty and purpose. There was always something to fix, some task to be accomplished. The best parts were the most dangerous - she always did like her adrenaline. Yet she sought pleasure in the mundane. The mechanical nature of research, debriefing, observation, strategy – it kept her mind sharp and calm. She was the most satisfied in movement, even if purely mental - inaction wearied her. In many ways, she felt she had been running her entire life, since the day she signed her papers with the Alliance. That is, until they made her a Spectre and a fully fledged naval commander in the same breath. Now her days as soldier, as a mere officer, were over. She carried a ship on her shoulders and an entire crew depended on her. She welcomed it only solemnly. Everything changed in that moment she was promoted. She felt heavier than she had in years. Never did she expect to be in a place in life where people not only answered to her, but looked up to her. Her choices, her actions - everything now meant something. She needed to make the right calls not just for the mission or herself anymore, but everyone. Near one hundred people on the Normandy alone, and in some ways with her Spectre status, humanity itself. Her thoughts instantly went to Earth, and she made a conscious decision to shut that dark thought out to be forgotten with her dreams.

A crimson orb glowed in the near pitch black of the garage as Wrex slowly opened a single eye when Shepard entered the room. He was leaned up against the back wall, arms crossed, sleeping where he stood in a corner facing the door. Shepard raised a finger to her lips and pointed towards the exit, indicating she was just passing through. The battle-scarred krogan, always on guard, grumbled an approving sound and slid his watchful eye back shut, looking like a sleeping monster in the dark. 

He had been almost pleasant with her since she had personally delivered his lost ancestral armor to him, wrapped carefully in a Tuchankan flag within an ammo crate. It was her first action as the new captain of the SSV Normandy. She remembered the indecipherable look upon his deep-lined face as she laid the box at his feet, never breaking her silent gaze with him as she bowed her head with the deepest respect, and left the old Battlemaster alone in the dark room without saying a word. Wars, she truly believed, were not won with pure strategy but with relationships. Allies. And now, more than ever, she needed strong allies. 

And besides, she genuinely liked the big bastard.

Shepard took the stairs, as she did whenever she could; she had no patience for that glacial elevator that made every trip a Homeric epic. She jogged up three flights to the command deck, her codex under her arm, ignoring how tired she still was from her nightmares. The doors opened into the empty room as she briskly walked to the comm unit besides the ethereally glowing galaxy map to update her objectives. It was still the middle of the "night", quiet and peaceful. She glimpsed the diamond lights of the cosmos sparkling in the endless velvet of space on her way back to the stairs. She drank in the field of stars, feeling profoundly tranquil as she walked the empty halls of her ship while her crew slept safely. No one needed her at this moment, even better, she knew they were all safe; at rest. In some ways she wondered if this is what it felt like to head a family.

She descended the stairs to the second floor, the desire for coffee beginning to ache in her mouth. Glancing through her codex, she turned a corner towards the mess, but arrived to find that she was not alone. Sitting in the dark, glistening with water and visibly shivering if she was not mistaken, was the turian in silhouette, staring out the window at the motionless stars. She stared at this odd sight for a few seconds, not sure if she was dreaming.

"Garrus?" she asked quietly, her eyes still adjusting to the dimness. She almost didn't recognize him out of the battery.

She saw him tense, his thoughts interrupted. He turned his head with its sharp looking crest and flat, plated profile. She could see his strange, reflective skin caught the starlight against the edges of his body. He was, for once and rather oddly, not wearing his armor, dressed down in the close fitting clothing favored by his people. She could tell he was now consciously trying to still himself. He looked down, then up quickly, trying to mask embarrassment; fidgeting.

"Commander, you're up early." he said, the low chords of his unusual voice wavering a touch as he tried to act natural.

Shepard walked up gingerly behind him, and touched two fingertips carefully to his shoulder, for just a moment. He was definitely shaking.

"Are you… _cold_ , Vakarian?"

He laughed, his voice resonating pleasantly, definitely nervous. "I...couldn't sleep, thought I would take a shower.”

He looked up at her, as she came around to sit beside him, not wanting to ruin this moment with unnecessary formality. He began to talk anxiously though honestly, feeling the need to explain himself.

“I think there's something wrong with the heating element in the men's bath. The water came out freezing."

Shepard felt a pang of guilt and her eyes closed in annoyance, but not at him. "Oh no. Tell me it isn’t getting worse."

Their eyes met and she nodded irritatedly, choosing her words, fidgeting to by habit brush a bit of her hair out of her eyes that wasn’t actually bothering her. "Well, actually, I was just discussing this with Tali. Us women on the ship are having the opposite problem. I can't even use my own shower because the water comes out practically boiling. She and a couple of other engineers were going to look at it today. Somehow something got imbalanced with our heating elements. This is a brand new ship, supposedly the most advanced ever built.” She said smirking a bit as she turned back to meet his eye, “So yeah, I am _not_ amused.”

She could see that he was smiling a touch with his eyes, as was the way with some aliens. It was one of the things she found so interesting about them, turians, and him in particular. She had always felt they had incredibly expressive eyes that gave things away their hard faces didn’t. His irises seemed to catch the starlight in them and magnify it tenfold the same electric blue as his perpetual visor. "Well, if you were a turian, that would be a good problem to have."

"Don't tell me your species is cold-blooded," she remarked, "Then the dinosaur insults these idiots are flinging around would be too easy."

"I could make some kind of primate joke, but luckily for you, I’m tired," he jested, catching her eye in his as she smiled, amused. "No, I know your species is warm-blooded, and so are we. However we have a lot of metal in our skin to deal with Palaven’s radiation, which causes us to lose heat quickly. So, suffice it to say, turians like it hot."

The unintended double entendre was completely irresistible. Her eyebrows shot up and she smirked, "Turians like it hot? _Really?_ I’m going to have to chalk that up to hostile work environment talk, Garrus. I am _offended._ Gonna have to send you to the brig for that one. I feel threatened." she teased, feigning offense.

"That...metaphor went somewhere horrible." he said, burning with embarrassment as she snickered dryly beside him. "It's early, alright? And what are you doing up, anyway?"

"I was up all night bouncing ideas off nar Rayya. She finally fell asleep."

"I can't blame her, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. But I have the feeling Tali is tougher than she lets on."

"For certain."

The two aliens looked out the window, the starlight casting them in ciarascuro in the infinite night. She glanced over at him again, his impressive, blade-like body still shaking somewhat pathetically. As with the krogan, she was more than a touch jealous – she wished that she could look that imposing without even trying. When a krogan or a turian walks into a room, it commands attention. When a humanoid female walks into a room? Not so much, she felt, drawing from experience. 

She shook her head, made up her mind, and began to gather her things. "Come on Vakarian, you look pathetic. _Come on,_ let's go. You've earned it."

He looked at her questioningly as she moved back to the mess, grabbed a mug and an instant coffee cube from the cabinet, and started off down the hall. He rose and followed, catching up to her as she swiped her finger over her codex, activating it as she turned down the corridor toward her quarters. He looked at her incredulously,

"Commander, I-"

"This is confidential, Vakarian." she remarked in a sarcastically condescending way, "And don't get too comfortable, I'll be interrogating you after. We haven't had time to discuss a few things pertinent to the details of your _fireable-offense_ worthy investigation."

He followed alongside her, still not quite knowing what to think, but too cold and tired to pick it apart by questioning. They reached her door, he watched as she swiped a slender finger over the access panel, which welcomed them at her touch.

"You know in C-Sec we usually used much harsher methods to get answers," mused the turian as he watched her slide into her space from the threshold. The captain's private quarters – it felt sacred to him – a place he was not really allowed to be, like the vault of a bank. He stepped over the threshold carefully, feeling as if he was being let in on a secret.

His eyes traveled over her living quarters, more than a little curious. Her space was pleasant and clean, done in light blues and grey, almost masculine and a touch sparse. Her bed glowed unobtrusively in the far corner, looking neglected. A well stocked and immaculate fish tank hummed from the far wall; little notes with handwritten details on the species names of its inhabitants, care, feeding habits, water conditions - all written in a quick, imperfect hand. He stole a glance over a narrow river of black silk strewn on the floor at a long, sumptuous looking robe probably sewn by a Thessian hand. An oddly luxurious thing he did not quite expect from her. 

It was obvious that her desk got all the action, and here was the life in her room, as well as it’s only true source of clutter. Various mugs were scattered about, emptied entirely, coffee colored rings still striating the centers. Data pads and codices were strewn about in overlapping piles, an alliance tracksuit was slumped over her chair, a model of the Citadel still in its freshly minted box, cast aside unopened beside several enormous bars of chocolate, which sat upon, oddly enough, a towering stack of bound human books; an expensive rarity. They looked like they had been around; some made of peeling paper, some with rich leather spines with faded gold letters. He peered through his visor to translate the titles, which were of largely obscure ancient human texts on war and philosophy; _The Illiad, Tao Te Ching, The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings,_ and a dozen others.

"You mean like harsh lights? Water-torture? Too old fashioned for me, Vakarian. Now get in there before I change my mind." she remarked as she slipped into her chair and leaned over her codex, her finger lazily indicating to the bathroom concealed beside the door, turned away from him.

"Hostile work environment, Commander, hostile work environment."

The small door of her bathroom opened for him into a little steel cell scarcely larger than a closet. He glanced up to see a large shower head suspended from the ceiling with a drain directly beneath it. There was a human styled toilet in the corner beside a tiny basin and a mirror. A few small containers of human cosmetics sat glowing brightly beneath the mirror, catching the light. He was incredibly curious to examine them, as his species wore cosmetics as well, but knew better than to intrude on her privacy. For turians at least, the paint they carefully marked themselves with each morning was an incredibly personal ritual. He stripped off his clothes then underclothes, piece by piece, no small chore as the room was tiny even for a human. He was extremely embarrassed to be in her presence unarmored, but he decided to not make comment on it. He had been more than awkward enough, he thought to himself. Confused by the alien architecture, he looked around for a place to put his clothes and saw none.

"Uh, commander?" he called through the door.

"Check by the sink, Garrus." she called through the door, reading his mind.

" _Oh_. Got it."

He reached over and touched a nondescript metal door beneath the sink. It slid open on and he placed his clothing inside. He heard it faintly hum for a few seconds as a powerful UV light and a chemical-vapor bath disinfected his belongings. He stood there wondering what he was forgetting, still feeling somewhat delirious with his lowered body temperature, until he remembered his visor was still on his face. He removed it and placed it delicately on her sink. It was only then that he felt naked.

Garrus stood beneath the shower faucet, nervously looking for some way to start it, but the water poured down onto him of its own accord. The tiny room steamed in seconds as scalding water rushed heavily down over his sharp, angular anatomy. It was, indeed, sweltering hot – but against his freezing body it felt intensely gratifying. His tight coiled muscles relaxed, and after a few moments all thoughts vanished from his tired brain into the luxurious, simmering steam. His eyes closed calmly; he steadied himself against the wall with one long arm and bowed his crested head, letting the near boiling water travel down the ultra-sensitive skin beneath his cranial crest. The water rolled over his shoulders and in rivulets over the striations of his armored spine. Completely surrendering to its seduction, he slipped almost involuntarily into a light sleep standing as he did sometimes, leaned against the wall like this for a good twenty minutes before the shower of water switched off on its efficiency timer, gently waking him. Jettisons of superheated air breezed him dry from unseen vents, leaving him feeling downright pampered as he lazily reached to reassemble his clothing, but realized in mild horror he couldn’t repaint his freshly washed face as he had left his little canister of the brightly colored Turian facial paint worn by both sexes with his armor. He kicked himself again inwardly, and hoped she didn’t notice.

“There’s towels if you want them.” she called, hearing the water switch off. “In the wall. Look left.”

He obliged; he was already dry but opening the little cabinet built into her wall, he discovered they were heated; a complete luxury he wasn’t going to turn down. His species didn’t really use them but why the hell not. He had never really known Humans; figured he may as well learn whatever he can, as it would probably make for an interesting story one day. He wrapped his shoulders in a folded bundle like some of his kind wore shrouds, and stepped out to greet her.

Still hunched over her various research materials, she looked up as the door opened and an immensely tranquil Garrus stalked out of her brightly steaming bath, looking as unwound as she had ever seen him.

"You want a nap now too, I take it?" she deadpanned, jabbing her head over to the spacious bed.

"Don't tempt me" he purred, the steam still clinging to him as he composed himself, ambling slowly out, standing opposite her.

She kicked a roller chair over to him, her attention turning back to the mess on her desk. "At ease. We still have a bit before you're on the clock."

"You're in a good mood."

"I like being up this early sometimes. The nice part is it's quiet, I can think, and I'm just a little too delirious for the nerves to start setting in yet."

He sat his narrow hips down in the chair, which was a touch small for him but he was feeling too good to care. He watched as she opened a drawer and pulled out a large steel thermos with an alliance logo engraved onto it. Placing it on the desk, she tore the plastic off of a mail parcel she grabbed from her shelf, and retrieved an unmistakably Turian tin, from which she extracted a bag of silvery flower petals. He recognized it immediately, watching in silent amazement as she slipped it into the thermos and passed the vessel beneath an elegant hot water heater of Human design, producing an admirable serving of a rare Palavenian jasmine tea.

"Here, this should be safe for you to drink." said Shepard, passing the warm thermos to the turian, who accepted it gratefully and drank it still scalding, his eyes closing peacefully for a moment, thinking to his home. She passed her own mug beneath the water heater, filling the room with the rich scent of Arabica as her coffee dissolved. It produced a delicious scent for such a desiccated looking little cube. They sat quietly together for a time, sharing in the rare quiet of a new morning, beautiful even without a sun.

"This stuff is hard to come by off of Palaven," he remarked after some time, his voice low and harmonic, mind drifting. "I haven't had it in years, since I lived at home. My mother liked it. My father always said it was "impractically expensive."

"It is," commented Shepard with a bit of a smile, sipping her coffee, "My gift for you and Tali, for all of those mining runs. Some of those planets were a monumental bitch."

He gave a dry little laugh, remembering. 

"And to make up for all those weeks you had to live off of those god-awful looking MRE's. With our new-found wealth I arranged for some proper cuisine, for everyone. Well, I hope so at least. I know practically nothing about Quarians and I hope I don’t offend her by asking to share with you. You are our only two dextros."

"After a life on the flotilla? I would be shocked if she cared. You spoil us, commander."

She looked embarrassed, but tried to laugh it off. "No. I've gone without long enough to know that small pleasures are worth it. Quality of life is vital to morale. I ride my staff hard and put them away wet, I can at least make sure they don't go to bed irritated and hungry."

He caught her eye with a smug satisfaction, and he smirked as much as his plated face would allow, revealing just a touch of his pointed teeth. It was her turn to blush - she looked sheepishly away.

"There, now I’m doing it - butchering metaphors. It looks like your awkwardness is contagious, Garrus."

“I didn’t know your species turned red when embarrassed.” he said smugly, watching her over the tea.

She gave him an acidic look, but he was unphased. He saw her lips pulling up against her will into another smile as she tried to hide behind another drink of coffee, determined not to look at him. She quickly grabbed her codex, intent on changing the subject. He watched her scan through her notes a bit manically until she came to the talking points she was supposed to be discussing at least twenty minutes ago.

"So," she began, suddenly sitting up with an almost regal air, her codex perched on her crossed leg as she swiveled to face him directly. "You mentioned a while back that you had well founded suspicions against Saren, but no hard evidence. Please explain."

"Well," he said, setting the thermos down on the floor beside him, "I did have something. But they were against using it in court. I obtained it, under... _less than_ legal circumstances."

Shepard looked up, brow cocking. "Oh?"

Garrus nodded, feeling her eyes become analytical again. "Yes. No warrant. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I figured the only way we were going to catch someone who was above the law was to go above it ourselves. You can imagine how well that went over."

"They're not exactly keen on flouting regulation over there, even if they need to from a practical standpoint."

"Exactly. I had testimonials and in a few cases, footage of Saren and an Asari Matriarch –

"-Benezia. The same woman in the recording."

_"Really?"_

"Yes. The Asari councillor recognized her voice when we played it during our second hearing."

Garrus sat across from her, looking frustrated and exhilarated at the same time. He laughed, with a bit of bitterness. _Of course._

"So what was so strange about footage of these two together?" ventured Shepard as she began to play devil's advocate, sipping her coffee thoughtfully, as she pushed his mind, "Maybe they're lovers."

"Maybe. But how romantic is Omega?"

"Depends...a lot goes on there... Could it be they wanted privacy?"

"Possibly, if that is true - but it wasn't just them. In everything I found, I saw the same Asari faces, about five of them, in the background, no matter where those two are seen together. I dug around the missing persons reports and sure enough, they match the faces of an entire Asari commando unit that disappeared about a year ago."

She surveyed him, thinking. "You're sure about that?"

"Positive."

Shepard clasped her long, many fingered hand to her temple, looking deep in thought. Garrus watched her massage the side of her head, her grey eyes glazed over as the mechanics in her head turned in motion.

"Matriarch Benezia is a spiritual leader."Her eyes flicked over to him. "Honestly Garrus? I wonder if it's a cult. Or something along those lines, true believers or not." They looked at each other, minds synchronized to that thought.

"So firstly, the Geth have a religion?”

“We saw some things to indicate that. Strange, I know. And...scans indicate unusual activity on Noveria and Feros - looks it could possible be a Geth enclave." she passed her codex to the Turian, who took immediately began to flick through it, reading. "What's the connection, Garrus?" she asked, leaning back in her chair, watching him put the pieces together with his detective's mind.

"Interesting - this piece here,” he said, tapping a claw against a key statement. “Money, possibly. The Noveria Development Corporation and ExoGeni. So…the Geth have a taste for corporate R&D?"

"I’m thinking, more like Saren and the Matriarch. Think about it – ExoGeni's whole thing is their fight to secure intellectual property rights to all those Prothean ruins on Feros. Couple that with NDC's reputation for questionable scientific ethicality and the convenient fact that it technically exists out of Citadel space and –"

It suddenly pieces together in his mind. He looked up at her, thinking out loud. "I don't like it."

She nodded, looking at him darkly; it felt so refreshing to not have to argue these points; for once. He was seeing it too. "Me neither."

They exchanged glances, looking at each other, feeling something mutual there. An understanding, and the understated pleasantness of working with someone who thinks similarly.

"So what do we do?"

She laughed bleakly. "Well hold on, it gets even better. Scroll down - read that part. The Matriarch has a daughter."

Garrus leaned back, raising the tea back to his hard plated mouth, thinking, shaking his head slowly. "Kaidan was right back there on the Citadel. This all did just get complicated…" his sharp eyes met hers. "I feel like you’re getting at something, but I can’t see it."

Shepard exhaled; graceful eyebrows raised, leaning forward to take her codex back. "Ok, let’s talk tactics. Let me know what you think...it’s Saren, so obviously we need to play a little dirty.”

He absolutely felt his heart skip over the matter of fact way she said that statement. After what he had been through with his investigation, his entire career, the affirmation there was nearly intoxicating. _Finally, someone gets it._

“So we take down Benezia first. Obviously,” Her eyes flashed; he found himself focusing very closely on her now, the way she was moving her face, her hand as she talked - he could practically see her thoughts, “Classic divide and conquer, you know the routine, weaken his resolve all that - but.”

“But?” he pressed, feeling a rush of anticipation trickling into his stomach. _Why did I never have a partner like this? Maybe I have spent too much time with turians._

 _"But_ rushing after a thousand year young biotic master _head on_ would be a death sentence. So I’m thinking...maybe..." she smiled a little deviously, catching his glance, “Come on Vakarian, guess.”

He stared at her, reading excitement in her features. Then it dawned on him. "Going after her daughter...commander, that's devious. Risky. Perhaps a little unbecoming," he noted dryly. 

Her eyes sparkled, locked in his, "I don’t really give a shit,” she mused sarcastically, breaking out into a full blown, oddly attractive smile. All that expression in their faces, in her face in particular - it was strangely delightful to watch.

"The good doctor went missing somewhere in Artemis Tau. We find her and interrogate her. She's got to know something. And even if still, we have her physically as leverage. I want you to guess what she has her Ph.D in, just guess."

Garrus shrugged his shoulders, curious, yet not able to discern. Her personality was getting harder and harder to pin down, yet this new aspect was admittedly quite infectious. He could see she absolutely loved the chase, considering all the angles. Between that and her quiet sort of leadership he understood why she had risken through their ranks so quickly.

"No idea." he said, perplexed yet amused. Shepard's eyes glistened, and she smiled knowingly, nodding a little bit.

"Protheans. She's an expert in Protheans. So either way; it gives us an advantage."

His mouth opened slightly, speaking before thinking, seeing her as if for the first time. "Shepard…You could have been a very good investigator."

"I think I would have eventually gotten fired. I think you know _a little_ about that,"

They both laughed in tandem; all embarrassment and awkwardness dissolved. 

They were interrupted by the pleasant buzzing of every overhead light in the Normandy activating at once as the ships clock struck 0600. Right on time, Jeff “Joker” Moreau’s voice rang over her private comm. 

_"Gooood morning Commander. Another beautiful day in bumfuck Kepler. How are you this fine A.M.?"_

Shepard smiled, looking up to the intercom, catching Garrus’s eye and making the human “one moment” gesture with her index finger that he had picked up a few days back. She was now in such a good mood she could admit to herself had somewhat fallen in love with Joker's bullshit. It was refreshing, a relief from the frenzy of her mind.

"Another day of living the dream, Moreau. Speaking of, I dreamt I didn't have a chickenshit pilot for once – then _you_ woke me up, sweetheart."

 _"Chickenshit? I'm the best in the Navy and you know it. Throw me one where it actually hurts, commander. "_ rebuked Moreau, his scratchy voice booming through her speakers. She shook her head smiling, sipping her now cold coffee. "Your balls are too small a target. Set a course for Artemis Tau and put me through the intercom."

 _"Aye captain,_ " laughed the pilot, patching her through. _“You're in a good mood today, for a change.”_

“Yeah, don’t push it.” she said as she continued to smile, looking off as she prepared her thoughts. Garrus drained the last of his tea, watching as she stretched her body a bit, took a deep breath and closed her eyes in concentration as she addressed her crew. He could tell she still wasn't quite used to it, that she was still trying a touch too hard. But after years of serving under exactly the opposite kind of leadership, it was endearing to him. It meant she cared. 

_"Good morning, Normandy, this is Shepard speaking. All crew report to the mess at 0620 for debriefing. And there will be eggs, people. Real, golden, delicious eggs. From actual chickens. Not that protein surrogate shit, and a few surprises for our more exotic staff."_ she added, catching Garrus's eye. _"First come, first serve. I don't want to hear any bitching later if you miss it. Shepard, out."_

The intercom switched off. Her method had worked – he could already hear people clambering into the halls to grab the expensive delicacy, rare in galactic travel where efficiency meant everything. Grabbing her mug, she stood, nodded approvingly at him that it was time to go, and they left her room together. Her door slid open into the bright-lit hall, and he fell behind his captain as she walked casually out amongst her crew, coffee and codex in hand. 

He gave her a nod, and slipped back in the direction of the battery where he had holed up as his living space to quickly dress and paint himself. Any other day, he would be incredibly embarrassed for about seven different reasons, but he felt a sort of high leaving that conversation. He hurried back as quickly as he could, still turning over the details of the morning in his mind. He felt as light as air and oddly distracted, finding himself thinking back to her often and seemingly at random, for the next several days on end.


	5. The Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are rules, anyway?

Vermillion stones tore open the slate-grey skies of Therum as the planet fell to pieces.

Garrus darted to his side; the rocket raced past him so close the heat blistered his crest. Her wild eyes wide, Ashley met his glance, nodded, and they pivoted into attack in tandem. Exploding out from behind her cover, the soldier strafed hard to the right, her Crossfire SMG singing as it tore apart a geth shock trooper in a rain of falling metal.

The other geth fell for the distraction, one unit turning to fire at her, sending a rocket blazing, only inches in her wake, but its fiery trajectory divulged the machine's position. His Naginata tightly shouldered, Garrus veered around his cover, raised the sights to his visor, and tore his fire into his target's center of mass. He whipped back around, folding his overheated rifle and replacing it with his Striker in a flowing, practiced motion. Charges detonated the stone around him in a shower of red-rock shards.

Williams turned, lips parted in concentration, and cut down another prime; dodging as hard as a rabbit, flying straight into the center of the stone atrium trying to lure out the battlemaster. The asari researcher braced back; raising a slender hand which quaked the earth with a surge of biotic power strong enough to dim the overhead lights. A running geth collapsed as she caught him in midair. Turning with absolute grace, the asari redirected, pulled apart her hands in gesture and tore the machine in half. Pivoting with balletic precision, she threw a barrier's blue glow over Ashley as the charging human soared, dark hair flying, gun first into the rushing frenzy of machines.

The turian whirled back out, unloading suppressive fire around the soldier as she drew more geth into the center of the room like poison from a wound – but something was wrong. He sensed, he glanced, trained eyes searching, visor whirring – no visual on the enemy krogan. Panic inside, then the blast of a shotgun. 

Garrus whipped his head left; arcing down the curved perimeter of the arena slid Shepard, stumbling and slipping, clattering to the stone below as the battlemaster barreled past her in a deadly charge, missing her by millimeters. She smashed and skidded to the ground; blood flying from her chest, shrapnel small pieces of armor tearing away into the wind. The massive beast dug his heels in and skidded to a halt, rearing his huge, bleeding head back to witness the human sprawled upon the ground, unmoving, the distress lights flaring on her utterly depleted armor. The sniper's gut dropped, his blood traded for ice; horror wracked his brain but his body whipped into movement as the dying krogan racked his shotgun, stumbled, and raised his thick arms to take aim at point blank.

For Garrus, time felt like glass when the sniper took his shot. 

The krogan jerked his horned head back as an exit wound of carnage exploded out of the back of his elephantine throat. The shots rang out, over and over, stacked upon one another in tight groups - but Krogan skulls were like concrete; he adjusted, he aimed, he fired. The final shot lined up south of its brothers. The battlemaster splintered to the floor in a wave as the atom of element zero discharged its potential energy through his spinal column, severing it at the base of his skull.

"Shepard!"

Garrus fell beside her, her limbs sprawled in unnatural angles like a dropped doll. The deep red blood of humans gleamed horribly from her nose down through pallid lips which drew no breath – she had taken a blast to the chest. His heart freezing but his hands racing straightened her, dumping medigel onto her, praying. He took her in his arms, lifting her torso off the ground. Her eyes and mouth opened, deliriously. She gasped shallowly as she came to consciousness, blinded and deafened. He shook her gently, called her name again but she barely heard it through the shock while the chemicals furiously worked. Her eyes focused weakly on his mandible as he took her beneath his arm and dragged her into cover, firing over his shoulder as destruction rained down around them.

He focused, he could see her trying to breathe - she was trying to speak, eyes wide - no air - she was choking. He pressed his fingers together and struck her in the chest with precision, pounding her sternum – she coughed, a plug of her blood splattered onto his plated face. She gasped desperately, the terrible rasping stronger and sharper now as air rushed into her cleared lungs. She made a small, alien exclamation of half-formed words as her eyes focused, life and clarity sparking in them once again. She called his name, her voice wet with blood, teeth stained crimson he held her up, irises just inches away from hers as he wiped her blood from his face.

"Good to have you back, _now_ \- we shut it down.”

He shoved her gun into her hand, pulled her to her feet. She caught her balance; they reeled to action, side by side, rushing forward together then peeling apart. Ashley and the asari scientist were pressed back to back amongst a litter of spent machines, limbs and wires in awful piles. Cornered by two primes, Williams' rifle glowed red in exhaustion as she furiously fired, teeth bared and screaming, the two protected only by the shield of the asari's quickly fading barrier.

Garrus barreled into the machine in point, toppling it to the ground with a Striker blast to the knee. The prime fell hands reaching for stability, his barrel tracing its movement until it met its target. The geth prime’s CPU erupted from the back of its skull in a terrible shower of crystal and silicon. Garrus turned, gun raised as Shepard went flying through the air. Her foot met the geth's bent thigh, she grabbed its shoulder with her left fist, the vanguard’s omnitool wreathed in buzzing light in her right. She reeled, she turned, viciously piercing it - coring it through it in a merciless rush, tackling it to the ground. Her blade caught within its metal entrails, tearing - she ripped, pulled and tore its head free from the confines of its shoulders. For a moment they could swear it was screaming. It fell, trailed by a tangle of wires like a nightmarish comet, its destroyed body following. 

Turned away from them, chest heaving, she ran a hand across her the wine red blood gushing from her nose and lips, chest heaving. She flicked the blood from her fingers, a cardinal arc falling on the ruined ground. Shepard turned to Ashley, her lips parted to speak but the horrified look on her lieutenant's face stopped her solid as she turned and looked back to the sky around them; lit ablaze with falling fire.

"Commander we have to leave now! This whole place is gonna blow!"

It was true – the ground and walls shook with vengeance. The volcano was in full eruption; the entire facility ripping apart in a fury of tremors. Boiling sulphur, pyroclast, and glasslike stones hailed down upon them as they fled for their lives through the quake. 

Racing past the luminous blue field they tore out of the facility, feet pounding on the shaking catwalk. Dodging the brimstone, the asari, exhausted and her muscles atrophied from the fight and from being statically confined in prison, began to fall behind. Shepard grabbed her thin blue wrist, staining it with human blood, and pulled her to the light. The four burst from the mouth of the mine, beset by broiling heat and hurling rock.

The SSV Normandy SR-1 descended from the ravaged sky like a furious angel. Her hull mirrored the flare of the setting sun and bathed them blistering light. She hovered like a wasp under Joker's surgical hand, powerful and deadly, the messenger of their salvation. The port hatch soared open. Garrus hurled himself up onto it, landing hard on the deck. He twisted around on his knee and grabbed Ashley, lifting her to safety. Shepard, in a halo of burning stone, pushed Liara's slender body up to Garrus.

Shepard looked up to him, the blaze of the burning sky reflecting across the blood-pale plane of her face. He bent low reaching for her. She lept, catching the long arc of his arm as they reached for each other, locking together, the ground rushing away as Joker ascended skyward. The turian lurched back, pulling her into the ship as they caught hard against the metal deck amidst a torrent of burning air. All around them the red planet of Therum erupted; black clouds filling the vast horizon in stygian swells of molten ash sweeping from earth to sky. 

They caught their balance, she braced against him, wavering against the movement of the ship and the scorching wind that rushed against the Normandy as she stole altitude. She caught herself, and they stood, he beside her. Shepard turned to look back at the searing carnage falling away from them, her body framed by hell. He looked to her as the light of the volcanic carnage turned her skin and hair a burning carmine. A long strand of her blood colored mane whipped loose in the wind as he stood aside her, stinging his cheek, snaking its way into his mouth by accident, slipping over his tongue. His blood burned. 

She tasted like war and fire.

* * *

"Too close Shepard, a few more seconds and we would have been swimming in molten sulphur. The Normandy isn't equipped to deal with exploding volcanoes. They tend to f _ry our sensors_ and _melt our hull_... You know, just for future reference." came Joker’s voice, audibly exasperated.

The alien crewmembers and human officers had gathered in the bridge, all forming a wide circle around the ground team of Garrus, Ashley and Shepard. All eyes were set upon the asari, starved looking and ragged, turning her fingers over and over in the oppressive silence. Shepard, face bloodied, chest bandaged beneath her change into basic uniform out of her ruined armor, draped a synthetic fleece around the Asari's thin shoulders, keeping a sharp eye on her despite the bruise that was forming over it, knowing her questions would not be as soft.

Liara shook her head, looking up at the Joker's voice darkly. "We almost died and your pilot is making jokes?"

Shepard looked at her pointedly. "Joker pulled our asses out of there. He's earned the right to a few bad jokes. We speak our minds on this ship."

The Asari's tired eyes narrowed as she tilted her head, surveying the commander with a clinical eye. "I see. Sarcasm. More of a human thing. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with your species, commander…but I am grateful to you." Her blue features softened, "You saved my life back there. And not just from the volcano. Those geth would have killed me, or dragged me off to Saren."

Kaidan, who was standing at the edge of the inner circle, interrupted a touch impatiently, his dark eyes moving from his CO's battered face to the alien in the blanket. "What did Saren want with you? Do you know something about The Conduit?"

Liara flicked her eyes to him, considering. "Only that it had something to do with the Prothean extinction. That is my real area of expertise." The petite female straightened up in her seat considerably, black smudged eyes now alert, the pride in her voice unmasked. "I have spent the last 50 years of my life trying to figure out what happened to them."

"Fifty years?" asked Shepard over her crossed arms, considering. She knew asari had long lives, but it always struck her how impossible it was to tell with them at times. "How old are you?"

Liara fidgeted a little, her soft voice now unsure. "I hate to admit it, but I am only a hundred and six."

"Damn," laughed Ashley in a rare humor, shooting Kaidan am amused look, "I hope I look that good at that age." He rolled his eyes, pressing his fingertips back to his temple. Liara tightened in annoyance, "A century may seem like a long time to a short lived species like yours. But among my kind, I am barely considered more than a child…That is why my research has not received the attention it deserves. Because of my youth, other Asari scholars tend to dismiss my theories on what happened to the Protheans."

A pregnant silence filled the deck. "Well, I may have a theory." said Shepard quietly, watching her closely. The asari inhaled a bit and fidgeted with the blanket once more. "No offense commander," she said dismissively, "but I have heard every theory there is. The Protheans left remarkably little behind. It is almost as if someone did not want the mystery solved. It is as if someone came along after the Protheans were gone and they cleansed the galaxy of clues."

Shepard looked on in icy calm, nodding. "Yes...it certainly does seem that way...well, Dr. T’soni, I assume someone with your expertise has heard of the Reapers, the...the sentient machines.” Garrus watched as Shepard looked far off, past the hull of the ship, past the space around them, to somewhere else. “They are what happened to your evidence." She finished quietly.

Liara looked at the commander in absolute shock, her smooth cerulean face cracked in doubt. "The... _Reapers_? What evidence do you have for this?”

Garrus felt his mandible tighten; he looked carefully at his captain, keeping his expression very still. He knew, with a sinking feeling, precisely how Shepard felt about this “lack of evidence”. It was an emotion known intimately to him as he hit wall after wall in his investigation into Saren, friend after friend turning against him as they came to believe what they had been trained to rather than what was in front of their own eyes. He knew what she was feeling - dread. Pure, black, unadulterated dread, at being the only person to believe something to be true. 

After their impromptu meeting the morning of the shower they had dutifully avoided each other. He, because he couldn’t shake a strange, buzzing feeling he couldn’t quite place whenever she was within sight, and her for hidden reasons unknown to him. At least, at first, until Tali had poisoned his mind with possibilities. She had point blank told him, he "had a crush on teacher" and now he couldn't remove that splinter from his mind.

The quarian had ingratiated herself to Garrus nearly instantly. She loved to “break his balls” as the humans put it, particularly over the supposed limitations of his technical abilities. She took great pleasure in standing over his shoulder during his calibrations, making disapproving sighs, and pointing out how wrong he was over virtually all aspects of his protocols. At first he despised this, but she revealed herself to be hilarious to boot and soon they built up a banter and playful friendship that got him through long days. He had never known a quarian at any great depth before, so her unusual openness about her culture and lightness in general was refreshing against the increasingly anxious tone of the ship. She was also a chit-chat which was useful; twice a day she would waltz into the battery and drag him out to eat with her and “come up for air” and socialize with the rest of the crew. He grew to enjoy these times, as in truth he knew he was hiding a touch from his thoughts, and by extension, reality. 

But she wasn’t his only visitor. Over the passing weeks Shepard had found reasons to stop by. It started with somewhat banal questions ostensibly about the thanix cannon, then to the nature of his methods, then giving way to deeper and deeper technical questions about increasingly arcane minutiae. He knew by the third or fouth somewhat pointless session of her grilling him on various aspects of his calibrations that the nature of these visits were a sort of cover, yet he didn’t know if she knew this herself. It was as if she felt she needed permission to speak with him. Shepard was getting increasingly tense; he had now spent enough time studying her alien features to be able to see small differences, enough to see the small grey shadows forming beneath her eyes from lack of sleep, the tiny cracks along her lips from dehydration. Her species were not as durable as his, and he was starting to see their tells. Though she never came out and said it, he knew two things: she clearly needed someone to talk to, and that the rumors aboard the ship and elsewhere about the Reapers and her visions were increasingly divisive. A few, according to Tali, quietly questioned her sanity. 

Shepard straightened herself purposefully; trying to make herself look as credible as possible. He had done this himself; it was like watching a flashback of himself during his investigation into Saren; a thought that made his heart sink in understanding. 

"There was a beacon on Eden Prime." said Shepard, her voice level. She kept her eyes fixed on Liara, determined not to look at the faces of the rest of the crew, "I...I believe I saw something. I believe... it burned a...sort of vision into my mind."

It was so quiet he could hear the ship humming. Someone shuffled their feet uncomfortably.

Shepard, determined to look like a leader, kept her face stone still. She said nothing, but looked into Liara’s eyes, searching. Something strange shifted across the asari’s face as the two women looked at each other. Liara's eyes became huge as all of her academic pretense fell to the floor, the wheels of her mind whirring. Shepard's sharp features pacified in a fraction of muscle movement only the turian could see.

He heard her voice shift register, slightly lower; ever so slightly vulnerable, "...I'm still trying to sort out what it all means." The two women continued to not break their glance from each other. Finally, the scientist began to nod in understanding, her sky blue eyes sparkling with thought.

“Visions…yes that does make sense. The beacons - like much of what we know about Prothean technology - were designed to transmit information directly into the mind of the user. Finding one that still works is exceptional – _extremely_ rare.”

Garrus’s eyes flicked back to Shepard. She sensed him and caught his eye across the room, paused, then quickly looked back at Liara, who continued, her mind traveling to her notes. 

“...No wonder the geth attacked Eden Prime, the chance to acquire a beacon, even a badly damaged one, is worth almost any risk..but the beacons were only designed to interact with Prothean physiology."

Shepard's eyes flashed as she felt her stomach drop, threatening her skin with chills. Liara looked at her very seriously, incredulously. The room was icy quiet. 

"I _can't believe_ you aren't dead." said the asari, very carefully. A quiet murmur ran through the room. "…And you still remember it?" she pressed, staring at her. Shepard looked down for the first time, her arms folding into themselves tightly across her chest. "...I said _"burned"_ didn't I?" she said quietly to the floor. Liara shook her head slowly, looking at the commander as if seeing her for the first time.

"...Whatever information you received would have been confused. Unclear...frankly, I am amazed you are able to make sense of it at all.” Shepard’s eyes flicked up, meeting Liara’s. Something unplaceable came over the asari's fine features.

“A weaker mind would have been utterly destroyed by the process."

The room again fell to pounding quiet as one by one they looked at their commander, who turned back her eyes away from them all, who cemented her gaze inscrutably to the floor.

“You must be remarkably strong willed." pressed on Liara, searching the red-head's face, her brows and freckles, and getting nothing in return as Shepard avoided her eyes.

"Ok, this isn't helping us find Saren or the Conduit," snapped Ashley, seizing the room's attention away from Shepard, to her immense inner relief.

"I am sorry, you're right. My... scientific curiosity got the better of me. Unfortunately,"

Ashley bored into her, looking murderous.

"...I do not have any information about the Conduit or Saren."

"Wonderful. Good to know we almost died out there for-"

 _"Quiet, Williams."_ hissed Shepard icily, her eyes still down. Garrus heard actual contempt there. Shepard flicked her eyes back to Liara, who was still looking at her in a searching, curious way that made the commander visibly uncomfortable. "Look, Dr. T’Soni I don't know what Saren wanted with you, but whatever it is, its obviously important. I think we'll all be better off if you come along with us. I won’t have you falling into his hands."

"Thank you, Commander Shepard." said the Asari, not knowing exactly what to say, still peering at her inquisitively. Joker's high voice boomed over the comm again, _"Yeah, sorry to interrupt Commander, but the council is requesting you. Now."_

Shepard sighed, her hand moving to her brow. Garrus felt a pang of empathy. She looked so tired.

"Tell them I need ten."

_"They said now."_

"Ten."

_"Uh, no can do commander. Has to be now."_

They all looked at her, she stared back, wondering what the hell they were waiting for. "You heard him, everybody out."

They rose and began to shuffle out, griping as they became bottlenecked behind Wrex's massive body, damned if he had to speed up for anyone. She barked out orders to them over their shoulders, hoping her action would mask her worry.

"Liara, please report to Dr. Chakwas asap for a full physical evaluation – Williams, take her and show her the way. _Give me that look again_ and I'll personally shave that head of yours and throw your hair out the airlock."

Williams rolled her eyes at risk of open defiance and cocked her head sharply at Liara to follow.

"Not you Garrus," said the commander, her eye falling on the turian as she nearly slipped out. He froze, and turned to look at her. 

_“Commander,”_ said Joker, _“It’s the council, should I put them through?”_

“ _Fuck the council,_ tell them I’ll be there when I’m ready. They can wait. I've waited for them plenty of goddamned times.”

Tali hissed, delighted. "Ooo, you're _in trouble!"_ she taunted in an evil whisper, cackling and making finger guns at Garrus as she followed behind a positively seething Ashley, who compulsively re-knotted her bun, as she shuffled Liara out of the room muttering to herself. Garrus glared at the quarian as she slipped out with the rest of them, practically dancing; he was sure she was making faces at him behind that damned mask of hers. _Crush on teacher,_ he remembered bitterly, feeling his stomach dart in nervousness. The doors slid shut, and he turned to Shepard. She looked completely deflated, crossing the room without looking at him to pour herself yet another utterly unnecessary cup of coffee.

“Yes, commander?”

“Shepard. Just... Shepard. At ease. I didn't mean to scare you. I just need a minute, but I can't appear to play favorites."

"Oh." He said, relieved but feeling somewhat awkward. He thought, _why did I say that?_ but she took zero notice, adding powdered cream with scientific precision.

"Good to know I intimidate you, though. I suppose that is useful." She mused wryly, the corner of her mouth turning up into a very small but genuine smile. She looked up at him and sipped her concoction. He looked at her, blinking, having no idea if she was joking or not for a few moments, but saw her smile and came to realize she was playing with him in her way. He felt immediately lighter and yet wildly stupid for catching on so slowly. 

"But seriously now, I recognize that you saved my ass back there. It's been years since I was KO'd like that. I want you to know that I am thankful that I have you on my team. That was a nice save, but I am a bit embarrassed. I didn't mean to slow us down.”

He met her gaze, considering the right words to say. "Everyone falls. I would have done it for anyone. Just doing my part."

_What am I saying - take the compliment! Now you look like you're casting doubt on her-_

"I know. But it was incredibly shortsighted of me to take on a Krogan battlemaster completely by myself. I mean that was just stupid. I have a notoriously bad habit of doing that-”

“You mean taking on krogan battlemasters single handedly?” he quipped, and she breathed a sudden laugh.

“Well no, but actually yes - _but seriously_ , I need to be more mindful before it gets someone hurt…” Her tone turned serious, “I just want to say... that I recognize that you kept an eye on the whole situation while myself and Williams got distracted. You helped us, again, avoid a bad situation to say the least. And so again, I want to take the time to say that I am glad to have you on the Normandy. I really can't say that enough, Garrus. I hope I’ve made that clear."

He forced himself to breathe, but kept his mandibles still so it wasn't clear how sharply he exhaled. "I'm honored. And, if I can say... after a few months here compared to C-sec? Well. I can honestly say that there is nowhere else that I would rather be."

He trailed off in the way he did sometimes while he searched for his words, his low voice flanging in a way that she found incredibly calming to listen to, like the ASMR vids she secretly used on occasion to try to sleep.

"Well," he ventured, something bold suddenly running through him, causing him to irrationally feel playful and brave all of a sudden. "Anwhere except for maybe holed up in some lawless wasteland with a pile of ammo and Saren in my crosshairs."

She laughed fully; a merry, short sound that lit up her face like a lamp. He could see she cut herself short a little, but was still smiling, looking to him in an unbroken gaze. He focused on how the corners of her strange alien eyes turned when she was amused, at how her face when delighted seemed to glow from within. "Can't blame you there, Garrus. But lawless wasteland? Careful what you wish for, it just might come true some day."

He let out a small, vibrating laugh. “Ah well, regardless. It’s good to see you smile.”

She beamed, holding her thermos up to her lips to nervously take a sip, “Eh, Joker isn’t the only one here with terrible humor. You’re a little corny Garrus, but it’s endearing. Wrex says you’re the one turian that thinks he’s funny, so of course we’re all trapped with you on this ship.”

“Can I have that added to my list of duties? Officially annoying Wrex?”

She was smiling so hard her face hurt, laughing again and looking away, “Can’t say it pays well, but sure. My pleasure.”

He chuckled; his voice giving a way a sort of pleased half-purr, his eyes stealing how soft her face had become when she smiled, a thing that seemed sadly rare. She straightened herself, now, trying to pull herself into a more professional posture, looking back at him, smile fading into a touch of worry.

“There’s something else.”

He nodded, feeling her shift in tone. He saw deep concern come over her face, her brow knitting slightly.

“So...How am I doing out there?”

He blinked at her, mandible twitching a little in thought. No one - no leader or parter, no one he had every served or worked with - had ever asked him this. He mulled his thoughts over, stunned; his thoughts considering carefully.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking.” she added, clearly a touch concerned at his silence.

“No - not at all. Forgive me, but... no one has ever asked me that before.”

Her eyes widened a little, he watched her cock her head slightly to the side as she did when she was thinking deeply, “Turians that is?”  
  
“Yeah...Yes. We tend to...not question ourselves. Our leadership.”

“Oh.” she said, her voice falling and her face slightly crestfallen. He rushed to reply before she closed up.

“No, no, not like that. I - I don’t think it’s a bad thing. The fact that you’re asking, well. That speaks volumes.”

She now stared at him strangely. He could tell she was controlling her microexpressions. He pressed on, praying the words came out right.

“Listen, I told you I’m not a good turian, so if you’re asking me, then I think...It means you care, just like the eggs for the crew, Wrex’s armor, the dextro MREs, and everything else you did that...well, frankly you didn’t need to do.”

Her expression now softened; her face looked entirely different to him, her mask for once, dropped.

“Do you think people noticed?” she asked in a tonehe hadn't heard her use before; the melody of her real voice.

“Definitely...all of it was wildly popular. You hit your marks well, but I think people respond the best to you when you are a little more yourself...a little more _informal_.”

She nodded, looking far off. “And what does that mean exactly? I'll be honest Garrus, sometimes, well, I think I can be, but then with this... _shit_ like these weird, _visions,_ ” she gestured vaguely at her head with her fingers, her eyes closing in stress as she trailed off. “...Look _I know_ how crazy it sounds. I don’t even believe it when I say it... I’m….I’m worried Garrus. About what they think of me.”

His expression softened, eyes still closed. She looked in physical pain. He wished nothing more than to be able to approach her, perhaps touch her, as he would a friend. He looked at her small shoulder, so utterly different from his own, wondering how it felt.

“Shepard,” he said carefully, his voice soft, “Can I be honest with you?”

She looked up, at first a little afraid, but she nodded, looking to his eyes. He took a careful breath.

“I..I really don’t mean anything by this, but you look…” she could feel his eyes shifting across her face “...tired.”

“...You can see that?” she asked quietly, and he nodded, carefully, taking a very small step forward, then more bravely, another. He looked down a full head taller than her, tilting his gaze one way to another to look at the dark shadows on her face.

“Your face is different here, and here,” he indicated, mirroring where he could see the sleeplessness on her face on his own, “...Look, turian ships have more operational discipline than what I’ve seen of your Alliance, but fewer personal restrictions. Things can get pretty stressful on a ship, especially in high risk operations.”

Her eyebrows raised quizzically, “So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you need to relax.”

That took her by surprise. She chuckled darkly, drinking her coffee. “I can’t relax Garrus, we have to be ready. Always. We’re nowhere near close to Saren.”

He nodded, considering. “Maybe it’s the difference between our species, but I think the crew can sense that you’re bothered. That you’re stressed. Now, that’s completely understandable,” he said graciously, opening his fingertips upward as he spoke, “But if this was a turian ship, no one would fault you for blowing off a little steam.”

She sighed deeply; the guilt that wracked her constantly wrenching down to her toes, “I don’t know Garrus, I’ve lead before, but I’m relatively new to this. I worry they won’t take me seriously. I worry there’s never enough time - enough hours in the day. And every hour, every minute I waste not getting us closer to our goals is just another opportunity for us to fail.”

He laughed a little at that, catching her eyes. 

“If they don’t trust you by now, they’re idiots. You’re a Spectre. That doesn’t come easy. You’ve earned your place, and at the end of the day this is your ship. They’ll fall in line because they have to.”

She betrayed a smiled a bit at that, searching him. His transparency was comforting, warm. She could feel something run ragged on the inside of her smoothing over. “Ok, so what do you suggest? How do people on your ships...” She waived vaguely at the deck around them, “..deal with this? Blow off steam?” 

“Well,” he laughed, “typically with violence,” that got a full hearted laugh out of her, “but whatever works for the individual.”

“What would you suggest for me then, Garrus?” she said a little sarcastically, a little more guardedly, taking the last sip of her coffee. 

“Less stimulants.” he said dryly, venturing to playfully take the mug from her hand which took her by surprise but got another laugh, “Loosen up your shoulders. Fewer early mornings. Try to care less what everyone thinks...and don’t be afraid to come down to the battery if you just want to talk.”

Her eyes flashed to his, and he held them there. “I know you don’t care about the calibrations.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.” he said, laughing quietly.

“Well then,” said Shepard, crossing her arms and looking down in quiet embarrassment, and after a long, awkward pause saying,“I guess I could make something up about needing a debriefing-”  
  
_“Or,”_ he said, his voice phlanging softly but assertively, “You don’t make excuses at all.” He looked into her eyes for a moment. There it was again, that strange light feeling just beneath her chest.

“You’re the captain of this ship. You can go anywhere you damn well please.”

Her lips parted. Wordlessly she searched for the right thing to say but it failed her. She looked up at him, looking from one of his deep set eyes to the other, nestled behind the glow of his visor. Something seared in her chest, hot and flush and enough to pain the wound she had gotten earlier that day beneath the bandages. She felt like every atom of her being was strangely vibrating in a special form of anxiety that was new to her - a sensation for once not painful, but strangely analgesic; numbing, delicate, and warm. She searched his face, still searching desperately to fill that heavy, intimate silence with something, anything - when Joker’s voice rang once again out through the air relaying dryly various threats of causing an international incident for her tardiness. 

The endless melodrama of intergalactic politics was so completely ludicrous that she openly rolled her eyes and mouthed the words _“kill me”_ to the turian, at which he quietly snickered. Together they left the room while Joker dryly recounted the various threats now levied against her, walking together out of the room as something altogether different than they were as they had entered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (How I see it in my head, as if it were a big budget HBO drama, because in my head it is)
> 
> Smash cut to black. In full volume, the melodic chimes and voice over of the song "Jungle Juice" by Ganja White Night and Liquid Stranger reel up just as they disappear into that slow elevator; the song lingering, growing louder as shot fades black to credits. The music intensifies louder over a black screen, the Geth-like beats reminiscent of their exploits on the battlefield. Roll credits. (I am a dork)
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/1VxQboO0KAsIm8MjSShBJv?si=X9u6TROnT7arOKtcYiQpDw


	6. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl meets a stranger.

Her pale fingers shivered as she pulled her cowl, too thin to keep her either warm or dry, tighter to her shoulders against the rain. It was only a light drizzle but the tears of Omega were sour. Millions of soft patters of dilute sulfuric acid sifted down on the docks around her, whispering melancholy-calm despite their composition. She bowed her head, her red hair falling lank across her damp face, smelling of acrid sulphur. She leaned forward against the cold railing of the bridge she stood upon, watching the raindrops form neon halos against the deep blue silhouette of her shadow in the water as they fell; almost beautiful, if the river were not made of sewage. She observed in silence the sharp angles of her too small shoulders, the steep curve of her ragged hood, the burn of the cigarette ash glimmering weakly against the ripples, a tiny flame of yellow, against the wavering dark like a distant star. 

Like Sol.

She couldn’t remember what real rain sounded like anymore. What it felt like to see green trees shining bright and alive against the skyward cerulean of Quebec. Though she was only 16, each day the faces of the holy sisters who raised her grew fainter and fainter. She had to really concentrate now to remember their names, and even sometimes now they refused to come, dropping as leaves in autumn, one by one, from memory. Somehow their faces had gone soft and featureless. Only dappled, shifting outlines remained, like ink with too much water. 

Had Marie, who tortured her with Calculus, had brown eyes or golden-hazel? When had she been tall enough to peek over the garden wall to the abandoned train tracks beyond the yard? Six? Or was it Seven? And who was the man who had always greeted her when they ran back inside after recess? She could see him only vaguely now; tall and proud and black, smiling as his weathered old hands peeled apart the silver packaging of the beautiful violet candy he loved so much - that he would sneak like contraband to her as she ran, red cheeked breathless, back to the classroom. 

They had all now disappeared beneath a veil of thick shadow. Here on this cursed rock light years away, with its twisted metal arms opened obscenely to the infinite dark, her sins had burned away those memories. And there, marooned on a dream turned to a nightmare across time and space she stood staring into the reflection of her cigarette, trying to remember as her memories singed at the edges right before her, melting into nothing but ash. 

Far off a turian transport freighter fired her engines, glowing with promise. She turned her eyes to it as even then they stung and overflowed into tears as the ship's engines burst with intensity. She could barely feel the cigarette in her fingers as her eyes fixed on the blazing thrusters, her heart tearing in slow motion as the whir of drive crescendoed into a sharp, mechanical scream. The freighter kicked off the ground, hovering slow and powerful, floating with alien curves and looking for all the world like a fever dream hornet. The exhaust kicked a wind that even meters back blew the acid rain back into her eyes and hair. The girl ducked against the freezing splash but was determined not to look away even through the hot flood of tears streamed down her ruined face. The freighter gained altitude, higher and higher, burning with blinding intensity and then warping into nothing but a searing blue flash against the endless void. 

She stared at the place where it had been as the tears fell down her face, silently disappearing into the rain. She wondered who manned it, what their story was, what they were carrying. Why were they on this oily neon hell? She had few Turian customers and knew them all - there were no familiar faces as she had watched them slip aboard. Most of all she wondered where they had gone. The Citadel? Some colony? Home? In her mind she flew alongside these strangers, trying to imagine so hard being elsewhere her chest heaved. She cried so hard her heart was breaking, tempered against the gnawing emptiness of a stomach not filled in 3 days. Dreaming, wishing, praying, all so willfully she could almost see the stars melt white before her as she traveled aside them faster than light. This she had done, this self abasing ritual of hers, in secret communion on nights when the drug running was over. Standing at that bridge, flicking that cigarette, night after night, her youth falling into the dark, stygian waters. Dreaming so hard, that perhaps she thought, deep down like a fairytale one day the sheer force of her dreams would make them come true.

Her chest felt like it was collapsing. The tears were falling harder, uncontrollable now. She felt the inner flame of will that had kept her surviving through the thin existence of a mule flickering in the rain as she wept. There was no way out now. The gamble of her lifetime, of running away for something better, something bigger than the manilla labyrinth she had been born into to live and die as faceless as her joke of a name, had been for nothing.

Jane Shepard. Like something given to an unclaimed corpse.

One terrible risk taken after another had given way until she had found herself helpless, nameless. A life spent living in the shadows of larger predators, scurrying in gutters to and fro, no better than a duct rat. _The Citadel_ , she thought bitterly as she wiped the tears from her cheek; a name without an image. Things she had seen in advertisements, vids, animate billboards, drunken declarations yelled in clubs; all just images, all just words, as real to her as the face of God.

She finally surrendered, folding into herself, into her own tired arms; freezing, starving. She bowed her head on the railing as she cried, the rusty metal burning her brow with cold. Her body soundlessly wrenched in pain that had now become physical. Far in the distance she could still hear the sound of ships leaving, of ships she would never touch, never board, leaving. Leaving the hell she was now enslaved to, forever, until the day she died.

“Why do you cry, beautiful girl?”

She snapped up, hurriedly straightening herself, harshly wiping the tears from her face. Beside her, _right_ beside her scarcely a meter away, a figure stood shrouded in gleaming black and grey. Lithe and faceless, standing poised as if a dancer, hands clasped behind it in thought. She could see nothing but lustrous leather and a hood that obscured all traces of facial features behind a silk mesh veil. Not a single inch of it’s skin was visible leaving no clue to its species. She narrowed her gaze and peered. From deep within that shaded plane where a face should have been, she could see just barely two white pinpricks of light glittering against what might be large eyes, strange eyes - eyes she could just barely see the impressions of peering back at her from the darkness. Deliberate, glistening, and black as if made of night itself.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her lips quivering. She was afraid. She knew nothing else in that moment except that this thing had simply appeared next to her as soundless as a cat. It looked back at her, unphased, divulging nothing. Her eyes flicked down it’s form, trying to discern any possible clue, her lip still vibrating in cold terror as she tried to stifle her quiet, instinctual dread. It looked Human, but the torso was too long, the hips too narrow. And she had seen almost every Human on Omega and frankly none of those brutes were impressive. There wasn’t a soul alive that could simply materialize out of nothing like this thing had.

“ _What_ are you?” she asked in an accidental whisper, the cigarette burning to nothing against her knuckles. Suddenly like water it moved, stepped once, twice - balletic, and slipped the cigarette from her fingers, tossing it to the river below before she could even move. She hardened to a complete standstill as her body froze in horror, unmoving and irrational like a doe. Whatever it was, she instantly knew she stood no chance against it. By just the way it moved she sensed that running was not an option.

“Terrible habit. Suffocation is no way to die.” it said, smoothly turning away from her and elegantly mimicking the pose she had not a minute before, leaning against the railing to peer out over the docks. She didn’t move an inch, her eyes following it intently.

“I don’t have anything you want. I have nothing on me, no hallex, no credits. Nothing.” She said carefully, forcing calm through her voice, her eyes staring unblinking at the back of it’s hooded head as it peered out over the shipyard. She realized as she was speaking her palms went instinctually up almost as if being arrested, but of course, that was utterly ridiculous. There were no police on Omega.

“I know.” It said, and gracefully gestured with a black gloved hand, indicating to where she had stood prior. “If you please.”

She didn’t move a millimeter.

“I will not harm you.” He said softly, sensing her fear. The voice, she could finally hear as her mind began to clear, was masculine. Deep yet almost delicate with exceptional precision to the choice of words. There also was a strange bit of vocal fry that sizzled in her ear even through her contraband translator. Foreign, alien, yet not unkind. 

“How do I know that?” she ventured, quivering, standing rooted to the spot. He slowly turned to her, his face still obscured behind a shadow. She watched him turn his head very slightly just a few millimeters to the side, thinking, regarding her carefully. 

“Come now, you already know the answer.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to find him against the shadow.

“...because you would have done it by now.” She said at last, very quietly. After a long, tense pause, he wordlessly extended back his elegant hand once again, and indicated for her to take her place beside him.

Like walking on an ice floe, she gingerly stole over to the edge of the bridge aside the stranger, never one taking her eyes off him as he casually looked back over the water, utterly calm. She carefully leaned against the railing, still staring hard at the side of his hood as he said nothing. The acid rain had begun to come down harder. From the shipyard an asari corvette had ripped away, arcing across the sky and setting them aglow in a wash of near blinding emerald green light.

“So,” she ventured carefully, peeling her gaze away to stare with him across the docks, “If you’re not going to kill me and you’re not going to rob me, what is it that you want?”

The stranger considered, and spoke. “Conversation.” He then turned to her, inches away but utterly inscrutable. “This is not your first time here, on this very bridge. I have seen you here, and elsewhere, many times. You don't move like the other rats. I don't believe you call this place your home.”

She was utterly taken aback by that, a thousand fearful thoughts running through her mind. “...What?” she whispered.

She saw him tilt his head deliberately up to her hair, a calculated action so she could see his body language. “A memorable, rare shade. If you wanted to truly become invisible, to perhaps avoid conversations such as this one, you would conceal it.” 

“...You’re saying I’m conspicuous.”

“I’m saying you’re untrained. Unrefined.”

“Well, I am.” she rebuffed, somehow against all reason feeling anger flare up at that. He was right and it bothered her, hurting slightly more in this place of insecurity for her because whatever he was, he was obviously expert at it.

“What can I say? I am self taught. I could only do what I could with the options that were available to me.”

“And which options were those?”

She laughed a short retort; this was surreal. “Are you serious?”

“Do I seem the type to joke?”

She shook her head in disbelief, wiping her hair out of her eyes. She actually slipped her fingers beneath her sleeve and scratched herself hard. No, it was not some sort of hallucination. That moment, and the elegant shadow, were real. Finally, she asked in dismay, _“Do I know you?”_

“No. But I know you. I have watched you come here more than you should, for the past month. If I have noticed, so have others, but they will come to realize more slowly. Regardless, I advise you stop coming to this place if you wish to maintain your safety. But before you do, before I never see you again, I wish to know your story. Consider it payment for otherwise expensive expertise.”

The accuracy of his words struck a deep nerve, and especially the realization that she had been careless. She bristled, staring hard at him, trying to find his eyes. Her anger, the thing that kept her alive, overtook her, wrathfully slipping into her voice.

“You know what _I_ think? I think all this unsolicited advice is a game. And it’s actually - _you’re actually_ \- quite rude, in spite of all your manners. You - who even _are_ you? You dare come here and interrupt me, minding my own business, to go on about _my hair_ ? You think you're the first person to do that? But you won’t even show an inch of your skin. Not even your eyes. And without a respirator _I know_ you aren’t a quarian.”

She spit out the words, incensed, gesturing sharply around them.

“Look around, no one bothers to hide their face here. That makes me think you’re some kind of 'rarity' yourself. Your fingers,“ she shot, jutting her head down sharply where his gloved hands rested on the railing, “Never seen that before, the ring and middle finger fused...What are you, _drell_ ? I mean, I’ve certainly never seen one before. They say it’s like seeing a unicorn, but maybe you fit the bill. And that would explain the hood. So tell me, why are _you_ here ? What are you afraid of? There’s no law here. No C-Sec, no council, nothing. So whatever you are, whoever you are - at least the life I live, low as it may be - at least I don’t do whatever it is that makes you afraid to show your face on Omega.”

He was completely taken aback. Slowly, he straightened himself a touch. A long, intense silence rang between them. She immediately regretted the sharpness of her words, but now full of adrenaline she hid her emotions beneath the veneer of bravado that had at least kept her alive this long. The stranger, unmoving, said in a very soft tone that was different from how he had spoken to her before,

“You... are a very quick study.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. _Incredible._ “Well, I have to be. I would be dead already if that wasn’t the case.”

Nothing but a silhouette looked back.

“...Curious,” he said quietly, “have you ever thought of putting that mind to a higher purpose than running drugs?”

She exhaled sharply, almost a laugh. This was all ridiculous. “Every day. That's why I’m here.” she said, gestured now vaguely around them before collapsing back against the railing, determined now not to look at him. For several minutes, they did not speak. Her heart had jumped from terror then to anger, and now back into gutting sadness. She stared down at the water, seeing their paired reflections side by side in the black flow of wastewater beneath them. As the lowest of the low in Omega, sometimes she really did feel she was in hell. 

“And is that…”

“Yeah,” she said in a falsely brave tone, wiping away the tear that was the end of his question. “Now, if you please, I have somewhere to be soon. Stop fucking around with me and get to your point.”

She turned sharply away from him, looking to the shipyard beyond. The acid was stinging her eyes, she told herself. She forced herself to stand taller, even while the weight of her emotions pulled her spine to the ground.

“I apologize. I must admit... I know very little of the world, in spite of what you may think of me. I seldom speak to anyone at length, and so if I have offended you, I give you my sorrows.”

She looked over to him, her face a mix of emotions she couldn’t quite place at the incredibly strange way he spoke. So carefully, so precisely just like the way he moved, yet she sensed the feeling behind his words, even with their shroud of slightly put on sophistication, was real. She sensed he meant what he said, and said nothing without thinking of it carefully first. Slowly, finally, she spoke.

“Its...it’s alright. But why did you call me beautiful? That was odd.” she asked, point blank, her eyes bearing through him. Directly and without doubt, he softly said,

“Eyes the color of rain. I need only have sight to see what is right in front of me.”

She stiffened, taking a step back. No one had ever said that to her, or as tenderly, but it did not fill her with inspiration or any great delusions of romance; it frightened her. She was very used to being looked at a certain way in her line of work, and even more used to running and at the implication there she instantly shut down. She knew she couldn't outrun him. He sensed this and quickly said, “Please, again, I don’t mean to offend. I am...” he stumbled, ”I _believe_ we may be of roughly the same age.”

“Well I can't see that,” she shot, stiffening. “And...and you talk like _a book_. I can’t tell if it's the translator, but listen, you are _very strange_. I’m...confused here. _What is this?”_

“Understandable. I’m sorry, once again. Let me refrain.” he looked back to the shipyard. She actually heard him belabor a sigh; dry, pained sounding rasp that humanized him in that moment. For the first time since they had begun their bizarre dance of verbal back and forth, she sensed he was unsure of himself. She could see he didn’t know where to go, that she had shaken his confidence. Somehow, regret washed her and she took pity on him. 

“You...were asking me why I come here….admittedly, _pathetically,_ to cry on this bridge.” she said, filling the silence for him. She relaxed her shoulders, breathing in and then out. _He definitely would have killed me already if he wanted to,_ she thought, so she may as well try to give him whatever he was getting at. He turned to her, listening. She eyed the outline of his hood and nodded a bit retrospectively, turning to look to the shipyard, far away, her eyes beginning to see past Omega to a place that only existed in her mind. “If you really want to know...ok. I come here at the end of some not so great days to watch these ships leave. I like to watch them go because, well, _I can’t_."

He was staring at her, unmoving and as still as stone.

"So sometimes, when I feel like I can’t go on, I like to imagine that I can just walk along with some of those strangers there, and go onboard some ship, and go somewhere else. Be someone else. Because honestly...” 

She felt eyes on her, with the very strange feeling as if he was absorbing her every movement, studying her.

“...I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know if you believe in fate… I mean mostly don’t. But something is wrong here. I can feel it. Something is wrong with me being here…There’s nothing for me there...but Sol. My sun - our sun, system, whatever - I think there is something back there for me. Something that I missed.”

“And what is that?” he asked delicately, watching her. She looked to him out of one eye, considering. No. He was a pure stranger.

“I’m not telling you that. I can’t tell anyone that, for the same reason as you told me not to come on this bridge night after night. If I ever do... _disappear_ one day, I can’t leave a trace. Not even with a nameless...shadow...and I _still_ have the distinct feeling you could kill me if you wanted to. And that I wouldn’t even see it coming. So _no,_ I’m not going to share that.”

She could feel dark eyes burning into her. She felt a chill and forcibly turned away from him, fixing her gaze on the ships beyond.

“But...when you said I’m untrained, well, you’re right. I never have much of an education in anything. I did that to myself. I made a mistake….a... _huge mistake_ coming here. And all I want….”

She bowed her head down, her chest heaving; betraying her - feeling the tears fighting back to her eyes but she forced them down. 

“All I want...is a chance to reverse it. I didn’t start out this way...a...criminal.” She was fully crying now, fighting through the tears as bravely as she could, too exhausted to be embarrassed. “A thief...a person who lives like a rat….I don’t like it here. It’s _nothing_ like what I thought it was going to be. I thought this place was freedom incarnate - no walls, no laws - but its actually... a giant _fucking_ prison.”

She exhaled, her eyes closing, wiping the last tears from her eyes. “...I... _hate_ doing things for people like this...bad people. Evil people...and knowing one day...I won’t be able to lie to myself any longer about the reasons I’m here. One day I won’t be able to force myself to forget the things...the things I’ve done. And the things...the things I know I’ll have to do to survive.”

She breathed, her eyes still down and closed, trying to will calm into her voice. She had never said these thoughts out loud. She found the words incredibly heavy and awkward on her tongue, but she tried as best as she could. _Maybe saying it outloud would be a sort of prayer_ , she thought, perhaps invoking some subtle magic that might make her deepest wish come true.

“...this is a _cruel_ place,” she said finally, the word ‘cruel’ hard on her tongue. She shook her head, completely drowning in her emotions. “...it’s not the way people should live. It’s not the way I want to live.”

Delicately came that rasped voice from beside her, from the figure that stood so still she almost forgot he was there.

“You have a gentle heart.” He said quietly, staring straight through to her. She laughed darkly at that in spite of her tears, sputtering a touch, still turned away from his gaze as she stood there, piercing his eyes through the lies in her skin.

“I don’t know about that. But whatever I am, I’m not...I _try_ not to be cruel. But sometimes you have to be cruel to be strong. To win. I...I have _alot_ of making up to do. For some of the decisions I’ve made. And honestly, I think I'm going to be paying for them for a long time. And I guess, as long as I know that's going to be true, I would rather try to leave some kind of mark on the world. But...a good mark. I just don't know what it is yet.”

A tense silence came between them. Sphinxlike, he turned carefully away from her to look to the shipyards beyond. He stood prefectly still, saying nothing, his silence immensely heavy. She could hear the rain around them finally beginning to stop. 

“So.” she laughed sadly, leaning both elbows against the railing as she stood beside him, looking at the blinding lights of dozens of ships of every color, model, and purpose flitted to and from the rocky expanse before them, punctuated with neon signage, “Hows that for conversation? Was that enough for you? For your ‘payment?’”

Softly and sadly, he said, “No" She saw him every so slightly bow his head down, "But I know I cannot reasonably ask further of you.”

He turned to her, and for the first time since their strange conversation had begun, she realized there was something immensely mournful behind that hood that now seemed forlorn more than unnerving. She felt, distinctly, that he had kept his word and not deceived her. He had listened to the whole miserable story without interrupting or doubting her once. It struck her that whoever he was he was uniquely, piteously, lonely.

“I’m sorry. I would tell you more -”

“You have no reason to trust me.” He interrupted quietly, in that low rasping voice without a face, “It bears no apology. Telling me anymore...well, we don’t know what we will be to each other in decades to come. Or even tomorrow.”

She felt her hair raise at his words, ominous because like so much else about him, they rang with a cold gleam of preternatural truth. He took a step closer. He was close enough now that she could feel his body heat sharp in contrast against the damp evening chill.

“What strange hands you have,” he said softly, taking her right hand in both of his. She looked up, trying to see him, but his face was as black as a field of midnight stars. Only the tiny gleams of white light against his eyes shone past the lace like netting that concealed him.

“And I won’t forget your observation about mine. I now know to be more careful.” His fingers slipped through and laced among hers, opening her hand gently. His middle two fused digits folded and lightly traced down a certain line in the center of her palm, reading it. She felt the sharp pierce of a long nail concealed just beneath the leather. She shivered, feeling his eyes go deep past her flesh to somewhere else, the uncanny crawl of her skin as he peered into something written in that thin line of fate etched across her palm that she couldn't see. She looked up, something had changed - she could now see just a little further past the intricate woven silk concealing his face into two large ink black eyes. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She had never seen anything like them; glittering onyx orbs that saw straight through her to worlds unseen. Almost entranced, she then felt something hard pressed into her palm, just beneath his thumb. She looked down, “But until then.” he said softly.

She opened her hand and sharply gasped, her blood freezing in abject shock. A sapphire the size of a peach pit pit sparkled up at her, like a drop of ocean made stone.

“May you find some kindness in this life, where cruelty has failed you. Let this light your path and keep your heart pure, as you find your way back to your star.”

She looked up as tears filled her eyes nearly blinding her, falling to the opulence in her palm that glittered rare and ageless in the dark. She had never in her life held so much wealth at once. Her hand shook trembling with cold adrenaline. Her whole body quivered, wordless, shocked, heart pounding, a thousand questions exploding across the inner universe of her racing mind, yet she found she now stood alone. She ran out, looking back and forth, searching, hoping - whipping her head to look at every long shadow that enveloped her as her eyes traveled from corner to corner, searching the faces of strangers, to no avail.

He was gone with the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (More useless notes on the HBO show that lives rent free in my head, that is what you are reading)
> 
> Finish on overhead wide shot of Young Shepard running in the street, trying to find The Shadow, as the ghostly chimes of 'Special Death' By Mirah play softly over the scene. She stops in the middle of a crowded street on Omega, lit neon violet and green by dingy street lights, gasping, the camera pulling in handheld shot to her face. She's breathless and in tears; looking all around her for him.
> 
> (Musical overlay to the shot, haunting female lyrics)
> 
> A terrible mistake was made  
> The weight would break the backs  
> Of ten strong horses tried to save  
> The castle in the fray
> 
> (Handheld camera shot panning down to the blue jewel clasped in her hand - the 'Paragon')
> 
> If you knew that I could take the pain  
> Inflicted at the battle  
> With faithful arrows you  
> Might get back in the saddle
> 
> But it's a special death you saved
> 
> (Smash cut to black; credits roll)
> 
> For me, the brown-eyed daughter  
> Once you made it hotter
> 
> (Dramatic pause, no credits, so the audience can focus on the following lines of song)
> 
> The thankless, holy praise  
> Is left alone, why bother  
> To cast a stone in water?
> 
> smash cut to black and the credits roll:
> 
> song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Y7SunUEcwxyev6VtXRnZd?si=bnuefsShToWZUrao8TRaeQ


	7. The Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard breaks an indiscretion. Reach only goes so far against flexibility.

“So the sapphire,” rumbled the krogan, taking a deep draft of ryncol, “Whatever happened to it?”

_BANG._

Her gloved fist threw a hard cross into the speed bag, sending it flying back with a bang of synthetic leather. 

“I traded it.”

The Krogan’s eyes narrowed. “ _Traded it?_ Didn’t you say you were starving?” growled Wrex, his deep claret eyes narrowing from over the rim of his bottle, “That must have been an expensive meal.”

Shepard smiled quietly to herself as she tightened her ponytail, turned away from him, shaking her head a bit as she mused inwardly. _Krogans and food._

_BANG._

She threw a jab with her right arm as fast as she could. Her dominant arm, ever so slightly larger than her left from years of lifting an omnitool from back when they used to weigh much more than they did now. She needed to work on that, she thought. _BANG, BANG, BANG,_ three now, with the left. That side was still weaker.

_Goddamnit, I’m still too slow._

She stopped, gathering her breath. Thin trickles of clear sweat slipped down from her untidy hair drawing slender cardinal rivulets down the constellations of freckles at her temples, her eyes going past the equipment into time.

The sapphire, cold in her hand, gleaming with rain and tears. 

Sapphire eyes. Cold and laughing. Saren.

Nihlus in a pool of flowing cobalt. Chips of bone broken like glass, still painted blanch white.

_You failed._

_BANG_ smashed her fist against the bag in rage, as hard as she humanly could. It whipped back, echoing throughout the empty gym, lights low and dim. The old Krogan sat with his bottle on a flat weight bench across from her, watching the comparatively tiny Human whip her fists against the punchball in the gloom in a way that felt distinctly familiar to him; that long, time honored art he knew so well, of disguising raw emotion for aggression. Anger against the vastness of uncertainty felt somehow useful, the old one felt, knowing from his near countless years of living out of pure spite that it was as addictive as the ryncol in his claws. Fury to a krogan, he thought, was a deep, smouldering seduction whose touch not even the most supple female could match. Maybe this little human was the same way.

Wrex watched Shepard still herself now and square her tiny shoulders with the weighted bag before her. Well defined enough, he supposed. He could see long traces of the triangular dunes of sand colored musculature cutting across her back, her trapezius winglike and flanking the dotted line impression of her spine. Her arms, while still tiny to his eye, were hard and cut with sharp triceps that arced back, knifelike, from the steep divots of her deltoids. She was breathing hard, circling, thinking; neither here nor there. He had stopped giving advice an hour ago, knowing acutely that at this point she just wanted to hit something. 

“For what?” he asked, watching her.

The little female commander was in less clothing than usual, wearing loose pants tied beneath her odd foreign navel and a small sort of reinforced covering that obscured less chest area than her kind usually showed in public. She was at least built stronger than the frail Asari, he observed, their inborn biotic abilities keeping them ornamental and useless looking to his somewhat old fashioned eye. He saw, pacing before him, a body that had actually seen some use. Scarred in a few places, burned a touch in others, and all over sheathed in a veiling of fine melanin freckles reminiscent of the big predator cats he had seen smuggled off her planet for exorbitant sums of credits. 

“A future.”

It was all she had to say. The old merc nodded, looking down to the bottle in his massive hand once more. A pure wipe of all extranet based records when done correctly - unfortunately and usually by some sniveling Batarian on a need to know basis - could cost as much as a mid-tier ship, and probably as much as some cursed blood sapphire from a nameless drell. _Drell,_ he thought sourly, _all big eyes and big words, each one a miserable sad-sack, wannabe poet. Always ones for needless prose and theatrics._

“Do you regret it?” he asked, more to himself than her, his eyes going far back into the deep waters of the memories he held, generations old, that lived and died there in his mind in secrecy.

“No. “ she said quietly, sensing the touch of melancholy there. Shepard turned to him and smiled. “Well... there was also the matter of the gun.”

Wrex let out a growl of approval and the nightmare of teeth that passed for a Krogan smile, _“Ahhh, good girl,”_ he said, taking a swig and just about to ask her what she bought when the airlock opened and in came the Turian with the constipated looking Human male that was always whinging about a headache. Wrex, instantaneously irked, grumbled as he watched them hard as they approached her, still pacing, head down and gloved hands resting on her hips. The male called Kaiden started, saying something about some planet scans coming back she needed to look at, while the Turian, barefuly but perceptibly, halted a touch at seeing her. Wrex slowly shook his head in low annoyance as he watched them talk. The turian was pretending to play around with scanning data on his omnitool while chirping something stupid about the damn cannon he was overcompensating with while trying, but failing, not to look at her in a state of moderate undress while she was distracted with Kaidan. 

The krogan watched her pace in circles, listening to the report. If she noticed the turian’s eyes, which Wrex suspected she did as she was definitely not witless, she didn’t let it slip. The krogan let out a deep, long, perpetually disappointed sigh. The baying fool was so obviously smitten with her it was embarrassing. 

_What a kindergarten_ , he thought bleakly.

“How do you even understand him,” asked the battlemaster dryly, deliberately interrupting the turian mid sentence. Wrex caught Shepard’s eye as she looked up and let out a few twitters of his bizarrely good whistle, something smaller species always found surprising for his size. 

“All I hear is birdlike trills.” he drawled. She erupted into laughter so sudden and light even the costive male beside her cracked a smile that he quickly hid behind his hand. The Turian turned slowly to stare at him with a look that would have cracked glass.

His eyes, one hidden behind that pointless visor, _more overcompensation_ groaned Wrex inwardly, flicked down to the ryncol as he jutted his head towards it.

“Wrex. _It’s noon._ ” shot Garrus flatly, glaring at him. Slowly and without blinking, Wrex lifted the bottle and drank again to spite him, growling,

“Its space. Who's counting.”

Kaiden couldn’t keep his face straight at that, his mouth hidden behind his hand as he turned quickly to pace away while failing at politely holding in his laughter. Shepard’s face lit up like a sun as she looked over at Garrus’s seething expression, as he stared on at Wrex while the old Krogan laughed at him to his face. 

Wrex watched the turian become aware Shepard was eyeing him. The stupid bird sighed sharply in dismay and looked back to his omnitool but there it was. That unconscious flick of his mandible; that pathetically useless appendage held on with skin so paper thin Wrex could peel it off with two fingers. He had seen it now at least ten or fifteen times now and it grated him like sandpaper on his quad, that little tell the sniper had every time the female did something he found appealing. He knew he shouldn’t be at all surprised, Wrex thought darkly, his mind turning to the bloodshed between their species. _That was like a turian. The weak always do try to fuck the strong._

“You’re in a sour mood Garrus. Did she forget to fill your birdfeeder?” pressed Wrex dryly, taking great pleasure as the Vakarian, angry and flustered, forcibly ignored him.

“ _Anyway,”_ hissed Garrus acidly, as he passed a datapad to Shepard, who was visibly smirking but listening, all the while Kaiden continued to attempt to find somewhere to hide in plain sight because he could not contain himself.

“Joker says we’ll be in the Hoc system and on Virmire in forty-two hours. If we pull _this_ heading and exploit a bit of gravity assistance _here_ and _here_ from _this_ star picking up the payload should only add roughly 2 hours, but these palladium deposits-”

“-I swear to God, Garrus _if I find out this is about the goddamn cannon_ -”

“- _it’s not_ , I promise. We’re thinking enhanced cybernetics and shield upgrades. Tali and the engineers say they can squeeze at least six percent more out of them with this. Given that... _thing_ Saren is flying around, well. We think it’s a good idea. ” 

Shepard nodded, listening. “Fine. _Fine._ Approved. But it has to be fast. _I’m serious,_ ” she added sternly, looking first to Garrus then Kaiden, who ran a hand nervously through his thick dark hair, thinking, “Not an hour more.” She said intently, looking back to Garrus, choosing deliberately to look him directly in his unvisored eye so he knew she meant it.“If they can’t guarantee that we’re skipping it. Those Salarians are in a shit situation and we can’t leave them out to dry.”

“We got it,” said Garrus, exchanging a glance with Kaiden who nodded solemnly. “I’ll get this back to the guys and Tali.” said Kaidan, walking over to take his data pad back from Garrus.“Let me know what they say.” said Shepard, taking a deep breath and then exhaling sharply, hiding anxiety. She then turned suddenly to the biotic.

“Hey. Kaidan.”

He turned to look back at her. She smiled a bit deviously and raised her gloves, “Wanna go?”  
  
Kaiden turned a ghastly, sour-milk colored white. 

“ _No._ Not after last time, I’m _still_ bruised.” He snapped, his voice taking a sudden tone and expression changing into something Garrus hadn’t ever seen out of him.

“Awwww,” teased Shepard, sounding genuinely disappointed but playful, “Come on, I’ll go easy this time!”

“NO.”

“Come on Kaidan…. please? Well do biotics only! You’ll... _probably_ win!”

“Absolutely _fucking not_.”

Wrex let out a low, guttural laugh from the back as Garrus watched this little drama play out, his eyes smirking a bit as he darted his gaze back and forth between Shepard and Alenko. He had never heard tranquil, good natured Kaiden swear before or look so incensed as he did now, Shepard prodding him, taking on an unusually sweet but playful tone Garrus sensed was the promise of a world of pain. 

“What about this bony whelp. He could use a beating.” Observed Wrex in a deadpan, raising his bottle to Garrus, who seethed, his facial plates furrowing tightly in indignance. Wrex took a swig then jutted his giant head towards Shepard and caught her eye, “He’s the only turian on board, _thankfully,_ but last I checked, Saren’s _also_ a turian. Fighting this minnow won’t help you,” he grumbled, indicating carelessly towards Kaidan, who, sensing he was getting out of another stress fracture, gazed pleasantly at Wrex. “If you should be training with anyone, it’s that one.”

Garrus stood shock still, looking everything like a Geth paralyzed in a system error. Shepard cocked her head back, considering. She raised her eyebrows, pacing, calculating, before suddenly turning back, gazing up at him. “Actually, Wrex has a point.”

He watched her eyes flick up and down his body, from the lengths of his forearms to his shoulders and down the narrows of his legs, sizing him up. 

“You’re actually, _roughly,_ Saren’s size- _”_

_“-He’s taller-”_

“- _don’t care,_ you’re still taller than me.”

He looked at her incredulously. “ _Everyone’s_ taller than you.”

“ _Shut up._ Honestly, I’m serious, it’s been years since I fought a turian. Wrex this is actually a really good idea.”

“You can thank the liquor.” He croaked in a deadpan, staring at Garrus, who then looked back to Shepard uncertainly. An icicle of the very specific anxiety he had been feeling around her for weeks now intensified, cutting into the pit of his stomach as she looked at him hard.

“I... don’t know Shepard.”

He felt her, watched her, run her eyes along the curve of his shoulder, slipping down the incline of his waist where at the steep angle of hip and pelvis her gaze lingered a touch, her microexpressions and face now carefully, deliberately, still.

“I’m sort of... in the middle of some calibrations.”

Wrex laughed out loud so hard from the background it startled Kaiden, swearing a retort in krogan obscure enough that no one’s translator was able to place it. Shepard sunk her head to her shoulder, her eyebrows raised practically to her hairline, boring her gaze into Garrus in abject disbelief.

“Are you... _actually_ serious right now?”

_“...yes?”_

She shook her head, rolling her eyes hard before closing her them, boxing gloved-fingertips to her temple in exasperation and pacing away, still shaking her head as he looked on, wide eyed, before flicking his glance over to Kaiden who smirked hard at him, also giving a little shake of his head that said _you idiot_ before averting his gaze. 

“ _Come on_ , you smooth brained fetus _.”_ shot the Krogan, and they all looked over to him. Wrex shook his head in exhaustion and stared down Garrus in absolute disbelief that he couldn’t see her invitation for what it truly was, if played correctly. It’s times like this he despised getting old and having seen practically everything. 

_“_ The cannon will survive _a whole hour_ without you mouthbreathing all over it.”

Wrex’s eyes narrowed caustically as Garrus glared coolly at him, refusing to give into the Krogan’s bait. Wrex being Wrex, went next for the throat.

“So what is it?” Wrex pushed, instigating, “ _Genocide’s on the table_ with you people, but fighting a female _isn’t?_ ” shot the Krogan acidically. Garrus painfully sighed and raised a three fingered hand to his forehead plates, shaking his head defeatedly and looking over at Kaidan, who was visibly full-body cringing at the politics of Wrex’s scathing insult. He caught Alenkos eye and sighed, “Why did I even get out of bed today, Kaiden?”

Alenko laughed a touch, smiled nervously, shrugging, “It _isn’t_ a bad idea Garrus. Shepard’s a vanguard class fighter and the most likely of us to get close to Saren, if it comes to it.” Garrus could feel the truth in it, but hated it. He considered for a minute, before shaking his head, his arms folding up tight as he looked down, thinking. Kaiden watched him carefully, knowing this was very unlike the infiltrator to turn down a challenge.

“And besides…” said Kaiden quietly, now carefully and deliberately averting his gaze, “You did say something about being highly ranked hand to hand combat....”

Shepard whipped her head back to Garrus, sensing blood. “Wait what? I thought you just focused on shooting?” she asked, clearly excited.

 _Godddamnit Kaiden_ , thought Garrus, as his eyes bored deep into the side of Kaidens skull as he watched him no longer able to hide a widening grin.

“What's this about hand to hand?” asked Shepard looking between the two of them, eager. Kaiden caught Garrus's eye, a glint of evil there. “Go on. Tell her Garrus.”

Garrus’s heart sank to the floor in terror. 

_“No.”_ he hissed, the quiet, slow horror dawning on him. 

Kaidan was now sheepishly grinning from ear to ear, keeping full body wrenching laughs just down as he stared back at Garrus, eyes glinting manically, “Come on Garrus, tell her…” he couldn’t keep his laughter in,

“-about _your reach_.”

Garrus was burning hot with rage, wishing he was born a biotic so he could explode him with his mind.

“Kaiden. _I’m serious._ We’re not friends anymore.”

Kaidan was laughing so hard he had his head in his hands and was pouring sweat from the effort of keeping his laughs as quiet as possible, “...Shepard,” he said carefully.

_“-You’re dead to me Kaiden.”_

Shepard looked to Kaiden curiously. Garrus felt his soul leave his body. Kaiden was borderline cry-laughing, little tears forming at the corners of his eyes. 

”...would you say _you’re flexible_?” he asked, voice cracking with laughter, arms crossed tightly, head down, as Garrus watched in terror. “Yeah, pretty much,” she said innocently, “Why?”

 _“_ I _...hate you Kaiden.”_ said Garrus in muted furor, tears of laughter flowing down Kaidan’s face. Shepard looked to Kaiden, then to Garrus, statuary and fuming. “Ohhhhhh….” Shepard said suddenly, piecing it together as glanced back and forth between them, before starting to laugh herself, turning a smile warmly over to Garrus in amusement. 

“Vakarian, were _you bragging?”_

All he could do was sink his face into his hand while he heard Kaiden erupt into peals of full blown hysterics. Wrex was making some kind of highly unsettling pleased krogan sound that made the deck lightly vibrate below his feet.

“Ok, ok, _whatever,”_ Shepard said quickly, brushing it off and taking pity on him, but only slightly. She walked up close and nudged him lightly with her glove on his shoulder to take the tension off. He protested but then looked up and their eyes met. She looked at him gently, her grey eyes gleaming. 

“Listen, you’re not getting out of _that one,”_ she laughed, _“_ I’ll make you tell me one day. But seriously, I could use some help here.” He tilted his head, considering, their eyes still together. She smiled at him warmly and shrugged a little playfully. She nudged him again. 

“Come _on._ It will be fun.”

He let out another pained sigh, running his hand over the back of his crest feeling his heart sink.

“Ok…. Best 2 of 3.”

“ _Great,_ ok!” she exclaimed, smacking her gloves together and jogging over to take her distance from him. Kaiden looked somewhat hopefully to Wrex, who gave a brief nod and permitted the human a seat beside him. 

“Keep your biotics,” said Garrus half-mindedly, pacing and beginning to stretch his neck from left to right, focusing himself, “You’ll need them.”

Shepard stopped and slipped her glance over to him, suddenly irked. “Oh _really?”_

He stopped in his tracks and looked right back at her.

“You’re translator not pick that up? I said you’ll _need_ your biotics.”

Her mouth opened in a pleased but slightly surprised smile; _that’s more like it,_ she thought. She chose her next words very carefully, for optimal effect.

“Big words…

Their eyes met.

_“For a mall cop.”_

She watched a flicker of burning hot defiance pass over his face as his jaw dropped, just a touch, in outrage. _There it was, that little mandible kick,_ she observed quietly. Garrus was suddenly predator-still, looking fiercely at her. Her chest, from deep inside, flushed forth with sudden heat, heart skipping a beat, washing her with a charge of the strange, voltaic energy she felt only when he looked her way.

 _“...Mall cop?”_ he hissed, practically spitting out the words, his voice dropping into a subtly rageful flay of notes more ireful at that than any of the roasts he had stepped into that day. Her eyes glinted vehemently, locked into his, as she shed her gloves to the metal floor one by one. 

“Better keep that armor on.” She said softly, pacing, apex predator to apex predator. His cobalt eyes were locked into hers, visor glowing intensely as she could see it kicking to work in biometric analysis, his stare following her every moment as she circled him. 

“Bird bones _do_ break easy.”

His eyes narrowed in quiet fury.

“ _Ok._ Come at me.”

_“Gladly.”_

Shepard whipped across the room in a biotic blue charge faster than the eye could follow. Garrus, anticipating, turned sharply, he dodged her, rolling downward as she zagged back, lightning fast. Him back on his feet, she rushed him. She threw one punch, two, three - he dodged, dodged, _caught her_.

Her fist dwarfed in his hand, he crushed down, she yelped in pain, and with his whole strength pushed her back so hard she fell back onto the floor and skidded. _He’s way stronger than he looks -_ she thought, her mind racing. Shepard rolled, dodging his heel crashing down, whipping onto all fours, cat like. She jumped - tackling him - her shoulder colliding to his waist, both crashing hard to the floor.

* * *

_“Uh, nerds?”_ Joker rang out from overhead, excitement barely masked.

Deep in the depths of the engine room, Joker’s voice came over the intercom to a room full of engineers in a heated argument over the best way to extract Palladium when alloyed with Nickel, with Tali shaking her head in dismay. Mid sentence she gave up at her pointless task, looking up to listen.

“Hey Jeff, what’s up?” asked Tali in a sigh, spiritually exhausted from arguing with technically oriented human men for the past hour.

_“Uhhh you guys might wanna turn on the big screen for this. Like now. Like, right now, now. Gym in Bay 3.”_

“Oh _God_ ,” exclaimed one of the men, wide eyed then looking to the others with glee, _“It’s happening!”_

“Jesus, are they _finally_ fucking yet? You can cut that shit with a goddamn knife.” Exclaimed another in dismay. Tali wheeling her chair over so fast she crashed into the first and literally slapped him out of the way to get a look, leaning in close and smiling like mad beneath her mask. Garrus had Shepard on the floor, throwing her around as easily as if she was a kitten.

 _“Better! THEY’RE FIGHTING!”_ squealed Joker in delight, so loud it blew out the speakers. 

_“ZOOM THE CAMERA IN BOSH’TET, HIT RECORD! HIT RECORD!”_ roared Tali, slapping the engineer aside over and over on the head with her little rubbery gloved hands.

“ _BROOOOO_ money’s on Garrus he has like 2 feet on her-”

_“Are you actually fucking stupid, Kyle? All he does is fuck with that cann-”_

_“OH FUCK HE HAS HER BY THE HAIR!”_

* * *

Just to prove he could, Garrus, his claws wound around and gripped deep in Shepard’s red ponytail, easily dragged her ten feet across the floor while she kicked and screamed, her tiny hands and useless fingernails digging into his long hand as unyielding as steel.

“Not so tough now _are you_? _On the floor?_ ” he hissed as he pulled her dead weight along as if it were nothing.

“ _I’m going to FUCKING kill you!”_ she screamed, eyes watering in pain, as he knelt and quickly flipped her on her front as easily as a fish on a cutting board. She was dense but light, absolutely nothing for him to physically overpower once pinned down, it was getting her in one spot that was the difficulty. He shoved his armored knee hard into the center of her spine, throwing his full weight onto her.

“ _This_ is a ground hold. _Ever heard of it_?” he sneered, shoving her face against the floor, pushing his forearm into the back of her neck, the cold metal of his armor burning into the back of her searing hot neck, shining red with rage and sweat. 

“You _fuck!-”_

She struggled as hard as she possibly could-wriggling, thrashing, flaring her biotics uselessly, but they were tapped out. 

He had her.

 _“We_ learn this before we can walk. What were _you_ doing then? _Playing with toys?_ If he gets you _like this -”_

Pushing down he slowly, deliberately, applied pressure to her neck, crushing the air, inch by inch, out of her all the while pulling, gripping, on the hair wrapped in his fingers that allowed him to manipulate her body as easily as if she had a handle. His claws scratched, sliding, against her scalp as he pulled against her hair. He leaned in and whispered, his voice low and lethal and right in her ear,

 _“-and you’re dead. Seven different ways, you’re dead.”_

"That’s Garrus.” called Wrex gruffly from the back, sounding bored.

He relented, she whipped immediately to her feet, enraged, chest heaving, gasping for breath. He calmly walked away to send a message; focused, drinking it in, adrenaline surging, blood pounding. He turned back to look at her out of his unvisored eye; he had never seen her so livid. She was breathing hard, mouth open, staring at him - unblinking, her hair destroyed and in matted tangles around her ravenous expression. Ripples of uncontrolled biotics lit along her body, coursing in excited, wrathful waves down her body like a pissed off cuttlefish.

His eyes narrowed at her, very much enjoying the sight of her physically exhausted.

“So. Having _fun_ yet?”

Her lips bared in rage, for once she was speechless. She stormed off to the left, went straight to Wrex, grabbed the ryncol right out of his hand and slammed the rest down her throat, which amused Wrex greatly. Kaiden looked on in horror as she banged the bottle back to the bench, turning back to Garrus with fury, who scoffed at her. _Really? Ryncol?_

“ _That_ won’t help you. You’re unsubtle. Sloppy. _You move like a-”_

She charged and slammed into him so hard he clattered to the ground with a crash like a buckled tower. Stunned, blinded - she dashed over his body, practically climbing him, hands and feet racing. She knew now, pound for pound, he could physically tear her apart. The only way to win was surprise and savagery.

 _“You cheated!_ ” he snarled as she scrambled over him, her knee pushing into his throat, pulling his arms apart in stasis with two small biotic fields to open his chest. _“No such thing.”_ she sneered back, “You think Saren plays by _cute little rules of_ -” 

Garrus whipped his head forward, headbutting her. His skull felt like a wrecking ball. Stars exploded across her eyes as her vision slammed dark.

She fell back - _no!_ He was on top of her, throwing her into another hold. Blinded, on instinct she kicked - _BAM_ \- her foot collided with something - his mouth. He reeled back on his knees, she pounced, whirled - whipped around behind him, _one arm - two_ \- and ripped him into a naked strangle, her hand charged with biotic energy, sliding down his neck searching, gripping - down, over - _found it!_

Her hands were small, but not so small they couldn’t snake down around his carapace and vice shut his carotid artery. He felt her steely little fingers clasp around the vein and twist, his vision already going dark near the edges.

 _“What was that now?”_ Shepard hissed, feeling him going weak, her face snaked around and beneath his crest, just next to his. She was so close he could feel her lips brush his cheekbone, “ _How_ do I move? _Like what?”_ she breathed, crushing her fingers down into the blood choke as she felt his limbs go limp.

“Shepard’s round. Careful, you might kill him.” called Wrex blandly, checking his exmail.

She released, he collapsed back to the floor, rolling over, coughing and sputtering as the shock wore off, oxygen returning to his brain. She stood, giving him space. He rasped uneasy breaths, feeling immensely nauseous. Unsteadily he climbed back to his feet, his balance wavering, colors and light all suddenly way too bright. He caught himself, and looked right at her.

“I….. _said_ …. you move _….like a Krogan… in a bar fight_ .” He spat weakly, panting, looking at her with barely restrained rage and cold fire in his eyes, mandibles flaring out like a movie monster she had once seen. On anyone other than him it would have been terrifying. Shepard smiled darkly, her nose curling, eyes slitted. She turned her body to the side, making herself more narrow, taking a perfectly balanced cat-stance. _Krogan in a bar fight huh? How about a little kung fu, you prick._

“You don’t know when to quit, _do you?”_

 _“Quit?!”_ He snapped in retort, breathing hard, doubled over, still half-delirious. She stared hard at him, composed, ready. He straightened, squaring himself, sliding up to his full, towering height. He turned his head, analyzing her through his visored eye. _Interesting,_ he thought, she was using form now rather than the melange of fluid, cherry picked collection of half-formed styles that comprised her barbarian, if not unpredictable, physical approach.

 _She’s a glass canon_ , his mind whispered. _All offense, no defense. It’s a front._ All he had to do was get her off her feet again and it was over. _Tiny little neck, peach-like soft skin..._

She watched his eyes dart from her throat down her inner thigh, landing near her femoral artery. Her heart lurched with adrenalin as she anticipated him. Reading his mind, she charged herself in a bright biotic shield as they stared each other down in a game of mental chess. A crowd had slowly but surely formed in the back of the room, as all around the ship the video feed of the room had mysteriously spread across key monitors as news of the match spread like wildfire among the crew. Someone had even boosted petite little Liara up on their shoulders so she could see.

“Someone move. I need to piss.” Grumbled Wrex, lazily flicking through Kassa fabrications armor upgrades catalogue on his omnitool, not even watching while Kaidan chewed his cuticles off. 

_“Come on.”_ Shepard whispered, her eyes still cinched in his. He stared back, calculating, _knowing_ she couldn’t keep her shield up forever.

 _Attrition._ Garrus smiled inwardly to himself. _Humans had no patience._

Through his visor he could already see the blue light emanating from her beginning to dim.

“Do you think I’m stupid enough to come at you the same way _three times_ ?” she shot, trying to instigate him, “No. _You -_ ”

She pointed her finger at him sharply, then jabbed it towards the ground before her.

“Come _here.”_

He had to smirk at that; several choice things came that he would have dared to say, but knew better. He merely shook his head slowly, glassy crest shining silver, knowing she knew enough of reading his facial expressions and eyes to see he was mocking her. And there it was, the tiny beads of sweat forming now at her brow from the exertion she was masking to hold her failing shield.

She watched him watch her, hair on the back of her neck raising, feeling his approach.

_You're mine._

He dashed forward shoulder first, crashing through her failed shield at precisely the right time _,_ lunged forward, she dashed right - dodged the long arc of his arm as he jabbed, his arm span vastly outreaching hers. She darted right, left - he swung fast trying to clasp her - she darted right, right _\- too fast -_

_BAM._

He wheeled around left and caught her around the waist with both hands, lifting her up and slamming her to the ground; she bashed back against the floor, sputtering, the wind knocked out of her. He loomed over her, backlit by the overhead lights now blinding, and swooped down. He wrapped one three fingered hand, fingers long enough to almost touch as they circled around her throat, and lifted her clear off the ground to bring her face parallel with his. Choking, turning purple, her feet kicked uselessly a foot and a half off the ground as she instinctively tried to pry his hand, the bundled alien muscles as hard as diamond, from her throat. 

He brought her face close to his, near enough to practically touch. She felt his breath on her face as she struggled. Staring in her eyes, he calmly raised one hand so she could see it, wiggled his fingers - mocking her - then darted them straight for her femoral artery. She felt two razor sharp claws grasp the life giving vein near her groin hard enough to hurt, hard enough to send his point home, but not enough to puncture.

His eyes smiled.

 _“I win.”_ he whispered. She could swear she could hear a vibrating clicking coming from deep within his chest, what was unmistakably a sort of purr. What she did next astonished even her.

She spit a dart of saliva directly in his mouth.

He dropped her out of pure shock. She clattered to the floor, he doubled over, retching. His allergic reaction was immediate and overpowering. Garrus flushed vivid blue on the soft parts of his body, his throat already ramming closed in anaphylaxis, suffocating him. All around them the room erupted in Human cheering so deafening it shook the beams of the room.

“Draw.” Laughed Wrex, extremely amused, amidst the clapping and catcalls. _The girl really does fight like a Krogan_.

Garrus, even though he was technically dying, whipped his head at him and tried to scream a protest but all that came out were inhuman, half-translated clicks. “Get Chakwas!” laughed Shepard, going over to help him up, but the doctor appeared in a cloud of ire, _“I’m here, I’m here!”_ she shot bitterly, “What are you two _thinking!?_ Garrus HOLD. _STILL!_ ” Chakwas demanded as she knelt down and injected a massive needle full of synthetic Turian epinephrine directly into his neck. His throat opened, he sucked in air, chest heaving, turning to Shepard and screeching in a staccato, so upset he could hardly form words.

“You! Little! _Filthy!_ -”

“- _Human?_ ” she laughed, tears in her eyes as the rest of the crew laughed with her. It was such a pretty sound, he actually forgot his pride for a moment. She turned to him smiling, offering a hand. He took it, and stood, and the cheering intensified. From over his shoulder he could see Liara on someone’s shoulders, her dainty features alight, doing a happy little clap with the rest of them. He heard Joker heckling something about the First Contact war on the overhead comms. He never even realized a crowd had formed. He looked down to her, still smiling, still holding his hand, and she pulled him into a warm hug, giving two masculine sort of taps on his back as they pulled away, her eyes shining.

“You're…. _really_ strong. _”_ she complimented, laughing, eyeing him, _“_ Like I always knew, but it never really clicked before now.”

_Really? I’m actually pretty average-_

“Yeah I work at it.” he lied quickly watching her shift her weight back and forth beneath her left and right foot, subconsciously fidgeting, eyes fixed on his shoulder. “And you…” he had to laugh, “You don’t go down easy.”

She smiled, flushing red.

“Hey I’m really hungry. You hungry?”

He rolled his jaw and spit out a tooth into his hand, and with it a little cobalt blood.

_“Oh god, I’m so sorry-”_

“-it’s ok, they grow back.”

“Can you still chew? _Wanna - ”_ her grey, gorgeous even,eyes wide, she eagerly jabbed a thumb back towards the mess, “- _grab something?_ God you _really_ kicked my ass. I’m dying for a beer after that.”

 _“I’ll grab a beer with you Commander!”_ Jeered someone from the back and they all laughed, “Shut up Kyle,” she called over, beaming while she cracked up a little at the private’s comic timing. “How about it Garrus? Thirsty?”

Garrus looked up and over her shoulder and caught Alenko’s expression. Kaidan was emphatically nodding, eyes wide and exaggeratedly mouthing the words _“SAY YES”_

“...OH. Yeah. _Yes_.”

 _“Great!”_ she laughed, running her hands nervously through her hair to create a new ponytail while Chakwas ran a scan over her, clicking her tongue thoughtfully as she read. 

“Shepard your body temperature is _way_ above normal, you actually have a mild fever…”

Garrus caught Shepard’s eye. This time she didn’t look away. “Looks to be psychogenic. Honestly something cold is probably a good idea. I’ll create a compress for you, _but for the love of God_ , please no more full contact fighting with _turians,”_ Chakwas laughed at the end, unable to keep her tone serious at the insanity of it all.

“Ok doc, but I’m going to have to break this tie one day.” said Shepard, still staring directly at Garrus. He stared right back at her, watching her eyes narrow in a seductive, suggestive way that made him feel weak in the chest.

“Well just not today,” Said Chakwas, looking at Shepard pointedly with a sly smile she didn’t quite catch. Shepard watched Garrus break away, swaggering ever so slightly, as he went back to address the slew of congratulations and insults from the crew. 

* * *

The fervor of the match, which would go onto become legendary among the drunken annals of Alliance personnel for years to come, had destroyed any sense in getting work done that day on the Normandy SR1. Waiving them all off duty for the next shift, nearly every man and woman on staff gathered in the mess for an impromptu sort of party. Raucous laughter filled the hall, ringing off the metal siding. Even Wrex had bothered to join, sitting with a few brave strangers, happy enough to tell some war stories to a few of the older guys. Beer and libations from across the galaxy flowed, people sat side by side in shared joy. Her four beers deep, him tipsy on some sort of fragrant Quarian gin Tali had smuggled aboard, Shepard and Garrus held court side by side at a long table surrounded by crew, a smiling but shy Liara, and Tali with her little entourage of engineers, still loudly arguing over who had actually won that day. 

“The femoral artery is the _linchpin_ of your _pathetic little_ circu-l-al--lal- _CIRCU-_ LA- _TORY_ system!” he sounded out, drunkenly, though he laughed so hard his facial plates hurt.

“DIE MAD VAKARIAN.” Shepard roared, scream-laughing into her glass, to peals of hysterics around her. _“_ Just like you would have 20 seconds _after you suffocated!_ Jesus Christ, _if we knew we could take you down with spit in the war-”_

_“DON'T SAY IT, DON’T EVEN SAY IT!”_

All around them laughter erupted, everyone delighted in particular to see quiet, focused Garrus so brusque, cocky, and open - and finally out of the goddamned battery for once. Tali was laughing so hard her mirrored mask was on the table, peals of giggles coming from her narrow body shaking the tube siphoning liquor into her suit she had affectionately referred to as her “emergency inducccction port”. Aside her Liara sat beaming, her delicate, soft features lit with a massive smile hiding behind her glass of red wine as she shyly flicked through a datapad, listening. Suddenly, as she stared down at something there, her face turned a pale blue, her eyes going wide. She nudged Tali quietly, pulling her datapad in close and under the table, passing it to her. Tali immediately let out a stream of hysterical quarian, laughing so hard she nearly knocked over Liara’s glass. Two engineers leaned in close - hands shot to mouths. 

Garrus, who was inebriated but not unaware, stared suspiciously. Shepard, over her laughter, caught his expression, her face turning to a sort of happy wariness. She followed his eyes to Tali and Liara.

“Ahhhhh what are you looking at, ladies?”  
  
Liara’s eyes shot up, _“Nothing.”_ shot the young asari guiltily. Shepard smiled, laughing in endearment. She was a terrible liar.

“Doesn’t look like nothing. T’Soni, what is it?” she asked, beaming, while Liara tried unsuccesffuly to wrestle back her datapad from Tali under the table, who had begun again to shake with laughter. 

“ _Tali_ , what is it?” Shepard asked harshly in her “commander” voice, face falling. She looked to the engineers leaning around Tali, and judging from how they averted their eyes, she knew it was bad. She took a sip of beer and barked out,

“You there - _private_ \- give me that. That’s an order. Hand it over to him, Tali.” Shepard demanded, reaching out her hand, clicking her fingers at him and indicating. The private, whose name was Reynolds, looked like she had asked him to cut his own leg off. The whole room went dead quiet and shock still as Tali, laughing so hysterically she collapsed into Liara’s shoulder, handed him the pad without looking. He took it, keeping it at an arms distance like it was full of spiders, and brought it over to Shepard without looking at her.

“Here, ma’am.”

 _“Ma’am?”_ she shot, tossing a look to Garrus aside her over her shoulder, “That’s how you know its ba-”

Her words caught in her mouth. Her entire face drained full of blood, going pure white. Garrus felt his heart sink. He had never seen her turn that shade.

“....Which one….” she whispered, deadly quiet, her face alight with the glow of the screen. No one moved while she set down her glass, arranged her fingers into a sharp point, and began scrolling. Slow, she looked up, her face contorting with rage.

“...of _you fucks_ …”

That then blended seamlessly into uncontrollable delight.

“Put this on _FUCKING FORNAX?!”_

The room exploded with laughter as to a man everyone in the mess hall absolutely lost their mind. Garrus lunged for the datapad, ripping it out of her hand and scrolling in absolute horror as Tali exclaimed, laughing so hard she was hyperventilating, so high pitched they could barely understand her,”

_“It’s on Dex-Life too!!!”_

_“_ Big Turian gets Cucked by Tiny Red-Head,” read Chakwas calmly from the rafters over a glass of whiskey, unable to contain her smile. The room erupted in insane laughter, her shoulders shaking in fits of sultry giggles as she commented _“Inventive,”_ at the title.

“Oh my goooooood, _read the comments!_ ” screamed someone from the back.

“No please…. _don’t read the comments..._ ” prayed Garrus quietly, dying inside, as Shepard roared in laughter, in physical pain as he couldn’t bear the embarrassment anymore and sunk his head to the table, banging it over and over on the metal as she read. Tali howled so hard she sounded like she was dying. 

Shepard took a massive drink of her beer and began to read to the room, line for line, the choicest, dirtiest - _Oh God, eewwwwwww, this one’s from a Vorcha!! -_ comments out loud, while for the second time that day Garrus wished he never would have gotten out of bed. But of course, he felt, as he turned his head on the cold table over to watch her out of the corner of his eye as she positively thundered in laughter, slapping his shoulder to show him the comments in such hysterics she was crying, he hadn’t been so deliriously, absurdly, senselessly happy like he felt that day, ever, in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More dorky notes. I see this whole exit sequence as having the vague tone of the opening credits of the movie Seven. Why? I don't know, because I love a dirty, gritty montage and anything Trent Reznor produces is sex.
> 
> We hear only the softest tinges of the opening music over the scenes of the crew starting to discover the footage.
> 
> Slowly the intro grows, still subtle enough to fit with the comedy, until the last shot of Garrus looking at her in an abrupt tonal shift - focusing on her fingers scrolling in the foreground smash cuts immediately to - volume all the way up - dark, computer lit-only montage shots of anonymous hands of all species typing in the comments of the video into the upload on Fornax; Asari, Human, Turian, Krogan, Vorcha, Salarian, Batarian;
> 
> 0:58 of https://open.spotify.com/track/1HS0wlHdPGElgTYf81bA0S?si=rNF785h3Qwe3hNnkfCx9gA
> 
> She spreads herself wide open to let the insects in  
> She leaves a trail of honey to show me where she's been
> 
> (stylized POV shots from fornax watchers' scrolling; dirty, lo-fi screen grabs of compressed versions of the fight.)  
> She has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin  
> Seeds from a thousand others drip down from within  
> Oh my beautiful liar  
> Oh my precious whore
> 
> (stylized POV shots from fornax watchers' scrolling; hyper zooms into the most erotic parts of the fight)  
> My disease my infection  
> I am so impure oh
> 
> (stylized POV shots from fornax watchers' scrolling; the clicking of keys - we see a frenzied montage of the snippets of the dirtiest comments on the vid spilling across the screen/interjecting the credit roll as they are typed, quickly cutting away to black )
> 
> Devils speak of the way in which she'll manifest  
> Angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress  
> Need to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness  
> I now know the depths I reach are limitless


	8. The Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An object gets torn to pieces. Two friends feel a wall disintegrate.

“He’s dead because of _you_.”

Ashley and Shepard stood one before the other alone in the darkened bridge of the Normandy SR1, surrounded by empty chairs, and one in particular that would never be filled again. Williams towered over Shepard, her eyes as dark as her hair; voice filled with blackness, as she jabbed a finger towards her Commander’s chest, utterly and completely byond any sense of protocol at the tragedy on Virmire.

“My family - _you know, family?_ That concept _you don’t seem_ to understand? _We’ve_ been soldiers for generations. Because _from where I’m standing_ you’re a shitty soldier and an even shittier leader, Shepard. You _let_ Kaiden die. And I’m done dancing around your ego. I don’t give a single fuck anymore what you think of me.”

Ashley had managed to do the near impossible; mortally wound Shepard without ever touching her. Somewhere inside and in the past, beyond the cold stone mask that was her unmoving face, little nameless Jane - too small for her age, too guilty to eat - her bony hands poking through the fence wires while she looked up at the sky dreaming of other worlds, was bleeding.

“I’ve seen the way that thing looks at you. That… _fight?_ You two had? _Please -_ what the actual _fuck_ was that? _That’s why he died! You’re distracted!”_

“That ‘thing’ has a name. That ‘thing’ is a person. That 'thing’s' people built half of this ship...and that 'thing', or any of my feelings for _him_ , had no bearing on what happened to Kaiden. Stand. Down.”

“So you ADMIT IT?!”

Shepard said nothing. Ashley scoffed so hard she spit, “Half the ship, huh?” she shot, _“Not the good half!”_

The Commander’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head in quiet disgust, her freckled nose and features rankling into repulsion. “...I knew it.” she whispered quietly as she bored into Ashley, fire overtaking the rain in her eyes. 

“Oh, _so you think I’m a bigot? You think you’re so pure? WHAT ABOUT THE WAY ‘THEY’ TALK ABOUT US!? Fine!_ You can think _whatever the hell you want!_ Do you ever listen to _your own crew? Everyone_ can see it! _I_ can see it! Did you - did you _actually forget_ which side of this you’re on!?”

Shepard shook her head, so dissociated she could barely feel a thing beyond the increasingly loud static buzzing of her mind. A lifetime of memories flashed before her eyes, flicking through scene by scene, each flash of the past uncontrollable and overwhelming as if on a thousand foot screen. Even before the first Prothean beacon, and now more so unbearably after the second, her memories and flashbacks were at times so powerful that sometimes she wished she had a switch that she could simply turn off. 

“The war is over, Ashley. It was over almost 30 years ago. It’s time to move on.” She said quietly, seeing the faces of her past drift past her eyes as if the ghosts were right there in the room with her.

“Don’t _you dare_ tell _me_ to move on! My grandfather fought on Shanxi!-"

“-Your grandfather _lost_ Shanxi.”

Ashley’s jaw dropped. Shepard, just as Wrex had observed out just a few days before, knew just where to hit. 

_“You- “_

“Go ahead. Say it.” Said Shepard said quietly, no longer in the room with her. She saw the way Kaiden used to fold his shirts so crisply, so perfectly, using some arcane Japanese method he had taught her once, on a beautiful spring day so filled with floating golden pollen that it stained their uniforms citrine.

 _"_ You lost Kaiden _you bitch._ And for _what!?”_ Ashley looked her up and down, turning pale and looking physically sick. Her voice dropped to a low, harsh snarl.“...For you and _that monster?_ It’s _sick_.” her eyes narrowed at Shepard, whose mind slipped back to near perfect flashes of photographic memories of the day she met Kaiden. 

He smiled at her across time, the first person to take to her at bootcamp, eighteen and tan and handsome, where he had become inseparable as a brother after he knew she could keep the secret of his sexuality safe with her; fighting off the sticky fingered groups of nascent predators that tried to corner the tiny girl, lurking unseen, in the shared sex hallways. Even then in the ‘glorious future’ they sold on all the glossy manuals, being a female in the Alliance military was a dangerous path; though the powers that be tried their very best to white wash it all over to keep the steady stream of starry eyed recruits flowing like fresh young fry to offworld slaughter. A stream that Ashley Williams with her respected, exalted, military family and all the subtle protections that bought, never had to swim in.

 _“-unnatural…._ how _could you - would you even?!…”_

Williams, revolted, looked her up and down, her mind imagining the nausea inducing atrocity of the woman before her with a Turian. _“You disgust me...._ This... this isn’t even a formally recognized Alliance operation, so you know what?..."

Kaidain's eyes - dark oak brown, strong and sweet and that saw so much; glazing lightless, forever.

"I resign.”

For the second time that week Shepard acting on pure instinct, no sleep, and a body empty of nutrition but full of caffeine, surprised herself. Like an out of body experience, her hand acted independent of her mind. The slap rang out in the quiet room like a bell, echoing off the cold metal that surrounded them. Ashley turned back to her in shock, holding her face where it stung bright red, but the light in Shepard’s eyes were grey and gone, having died along with Kaiden the evening before.

“You want to leave? Fine.” Shepard whispered, unblinking. Kaidens face was more real to Shepard in that moment than the woman standing before her. 

“Consider that your leave. Get your shit, and the fuck off my ship.”

Ashley’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

 _“Joker_!”

Moreau, who had been eavesdropping on the whole thing with his eyes wide and his heart pounding, tried to sound nonchalant. 

_“Yes Commander?”_

“Set a course for the nearest Alliance base. I don’t care where. Now. We’re dropping Williams off.”

Tears of pure hate streamed down Ashleys face, her mascara running, lip quivering in rage, still trying to form words. She turned away from her, then back. “So help me God Shepard, you’ll regret this one day, you fucking traitor.”

But Shepard stared into time, seeing past her. Kaiden laughing on shore leave, swinging her, 20, finally healthy looking and filled out, around a dancefloor. She was such a terrible dancer, but he really did try to teach her.

“You want another one?” she asked, only barely aware of her from far away. Shepard felt her finger jam directly into her chest.

“I am going to be a Spectre one day, _one day soon,_ and _you will wish_ you were never born. _You won’t be special anymore, you won’t be privileged anymore_ , and _no one_ will remember your name when this is over. You can keep your little freak show, _and I_ will show this galaxy what humanity is really made of. Mark my words.”

Ashley pushed past her in a body check, walking out of the room and her life, tears falling to the deck as she walked out of the Normandy SR1’s history and never looked back. 

Shepard stood as still as death, from far away listening to the airlock close behind her. She stood precisely in that spot as the memories flashed before her scene by scene, so powerful she could practically taste them, for how long she didn’t know. Finally, at last she came back to the present like emerging from a deep sea into surface sunlight. Her head above the deep waters of her memory, she heard the air recycling, whirring through the vents. Deep down, if she listened carefully enough, she could even hear the hum of the tantalus drive core; the beating half-Turian heart that purred beneath her feet. 

Feeling nothing, she knew she had to move. Automatically and compulsively, she started to organize the chairs in the circle around her, her eyes colorless and glassed over. She grabbed this one and that one, wiping little specks of dust from their arms, their backs, arranging them just so, perfectly spaced apart, perfectly angled. As she came to the last one, she tried to slide it over and it stuck, one of the wheels caught.

Wheeled it again, and it stuck. 

_Wheeled-_

-and it stuck.

She knelt down, her face cold, cheeks numb, and flipped it over, examining it. Caught inside the wheel housing were long strands of human hair and other detritus, creating a clog. Shepard looked at the shining strands closely; some of it clearly Ashley’s, some of it hers, and of course, a hundred other strands of the hundred other diverse colors of human hair on board. She jammed her fingers in as deep as she could around the malfunctioning wheel. Pulling, digging, Shepard dredged out hair and other assorted garbage that came out by the fingerful, trying her hardest to get the object to work, to flow, as it should. _There_ , she felt, finally satisfied as now clean of the long strands that had disabled it, the wheel moved freely when she spun it. She flipped the chair back over, wheeled it -

And it stuck.

She stared down, feeling something fracture inside of her.

Slowly, deliberately, Shepard picked up the chair by it’s headrest, arcing it over her body, and began to slam it on the floor until it broke apart just as she did, in a flood of repressed tears.

By the time Garrus entered the room, quietly tipped off by Joker, she was shaking, tears falling from her face in complete silence. He watched caught in shock, as she stood tearing apart the remainder of the chair, piece by piece, with her bare hands.

He rushed to her, forcibly taking a piece of shredded headrest out of her hands, as she collapsed into his arms. Throwing it to the floor he pulled her into his chest as she wept, her body wrenching against his in pain. He tucked her head beneath his chin, deep into him, with his hand, instinctually shielding her. He looked around quickly, furtively. No one could see her like this. Thankfully, they were alone.

“Come on,” he said quietly to her, “Come with me - _Shepard._ _Come with me_.”

Taking her under his long arm, Garrus ushered her out by the least travelled corridors directly to her cabin. Joker quietly and surgically, locked and unlocked all pertinent doors along their way, guaranteeing not a soul would see their commander fallen completely apart. Jeff Moreau, who had suffered with pain mental, physical, and emotional for his entire life knew precisely how frailty felt. He tucked his cap tighter against his head, watching on his monitors as the pair make their way across the ship, while he silently flagged a cleanup for the disposal of the chair, with nothing in the record to detail as to why. 

Garrus got her through the door of her quarters and scanned. It looked to the turian, who had such an eye for detail that at once had such a promising career, that she hadn’t lived in it for days. She was shaking so hard she could barely stand, trying to stuff tiny, pathetic sounds back inside of her, but they leaked out through the holes where her defenses lay destroyed. With her under his arm, Garrus practically carried Shepard to her bed, which by the perfection of the sheets and collection of codices spread over it, looked conspicuously as if she hadn’t slept in it at all. He swept all of it, all of the papers, all the datapads - the slow and steady soul poison of her impossible work - to the floor, not caring if he broke a single goddamn thing. He set her down there where she collapsed, her head in her hands, practically in her knees. He kneeled before her, putting his face close to hers. 

“Look at me,” he said softly, taking her hands away from her face in his. His hands, so foreign, strange and silvery with their odd long fingers, were incredibly warm. He was right, his stupid joke from the last time they were there together; his kind did burn hotter. She remembered with such bitterness it tore her apart, and mourned for all those missed mornings after they could have spent together, a lifetime ago compressed in only months.

 _“Don’t be afraid. Look at me.”_

Slowly, painfully, she obliged, her gaze looking slowly up and landing in his. Her eyes were swollen blood red and brimmed with tears, her face destroyed in anguish. Garrus felt his heart sink, breaking, as their eyes met, grey in cerulean. He looked at her tenderly, her lips were just barely but perceptibly cracked; she was dehydrated again, drowning in a lake of saltwater tears. He felt his chest grow heavy. Seeing her like this tore at him in a way he hadn’t felt before. He hadn't ever seen her look so small and fragile as she did then, quivering, disintegrating, as if made of paper in rain.

He stood to his full height, going straight to her desk, moving more of the work that was slowly but surely killing her out of the way until he excavated the hot water heater he knew was buried there. Garrus grabbed the first empty vessel he could find, made a disapproving click as he could see it had formerly been filled with coffee but it would have to do, then fumbled around with the too-small for him panel on the alien design until he figured out how to make it come out cold. He filled the glass with pure water, waiting impatiently, tapping his foot, until it filled, and then went back to kneel before her, pressing the cold glass rim to her lips.

“No.” she said, turning away in shame, eyes closed. He didn’t move. He had fought her, so he knew her, as his kind said. He exhaled patiently, but tinged a touch with defiance.

" _For once_ , will you do _as_ _I_ say?”

She felt her spine tingle as suddenly he took the end of her chin softly between his thumb and index finger, being careful with his claws, and gently turned her face to his.

She looked back at him, her large, sad, alien eyes filling with rain again. He pressed the rim of the glass to her strange soft mouth, and she took it, finally surrendering, and drank. By the time she was done, he had another glass of water filled, and he gently forced this one on her too. And then another after that. The fourth time she looked up, it was a bottle of red wine.

She actually laughed at that, a small sad sound full of hurt. The short burst of mirth at just how profoundly, unexpectedly good of a friend he had been to her all this time - asking nothing in return as even now as she burned with shame, turned back somehow to tears. 

The turian sank down beside her on the edge of her bed, digging a curved claw down into the cork and expertly ripping it out in one smooth motion, pouring the red medicine carefully into one of the empty glasses he had picked up from in front of her. The human looked on watching him sadly, with no concept of how many nights alone as a C-Sec officer in his tidy, lonely little apartment, he had done this very ritual while staring out his window to the thousand colored neon glow of a city that shined, but not for him; watching couples pass by below him, hand in hand, as he drank alone.

He handed the glass to her carefully, she sipped eagerly, but he drank straight from the bottle. “You’ll get sick,” she said sorrowfully watching him, knowing it was levo. He swallowed hard, pushing it down. “I don’t care.” said Garrus, his voice flanging in low tones, now the one to not look at her. She watched him pause, aware of her gaze, and he forcefully drank again, harder, gathering bravery he didn’t need. Her heart broke in new ways as she watched him, so afraid just as she was, of what was obviously between them. Yet she, overcome by the sadness brimming just beneath her carefully studied surface, was already in pieces. She wondered in that moment what the armor between them mattered anymore. Her cover, she thought bitterly, was blown. 

He set the bottle down, his eyes kept away from her. Slowly, carefully, he inched an arm over to her, not looking. He pulled her into an awkward sort of hug, pathetically and unconvincingly passed off as platonic. Their bodies met, somehow more intimate than they had ever been while sparring, and she felt him slowly giving up just as she had with the water, as he inexorably came to realize she was already there in his arms. What did an inch more really matter.

Garrus exhaled in almost a quiet agony, pulling her closer in a fight of his own will losing against itself against his chest to a full embrace. He tucked his head down, pressing into her, and he wrapped his long arms around her. Slowly his hands found the soft sheet of her hair, and he ran his fingers finally through that warm, forbidden, plum-colored curtain. She set down the glass and pushed herself fully into him, hiding her face in his armored chest; feeling new symphonies of emotions she didn't have words destroying her in ways virgin to her heart.

He pushed his chin down onto the soft silk of her head, smooth beneath his mandibles like satin. She circled her hands around him, finding his lower back, down the path to this strange narrow waist, and she gripped for all her life; the tears falling from her eyes as she pushed into him, still trying and failing, to be strong.

She wept bitterly, feeling his long fingers grasp at her head, running through her hair, stroking her. She felt the long claws there in his fingers, those that clicked panels and tapped metal, that made a rifle sing and bullets dance, and felt caress against the nape of her neck. In that bittersweet moment, so heavy with truth and longing and sadness, his fingers healed like nothing else. _“You...can’t save them all. You can’t save everyone. It’s impossible.”_ He whispered, reading her, knowing without asking precisely what made her cry. Garrus felt her fall apart once again at his words, and all he could do was hold her tighter, keeping those broken pieces together in one body. He was quietly expert at this, like so much else; he had learned this very trick alone and in the dark, practiced on himself through of the quiet isolation he felt his entire life. Words he couldn’t translate came out of her; melanges of the sounds of tribal languages from a far away star. The pained cries of the strange creature he should never have come to hold, brushing her peculiar hair with his fingertips, feeling himself falling into an abyss of feeling that threatened to consume him whole.

Languageless except for the shared suffering of grief, she collapsed onto the bed, too weak even to sit. He looked at her, miserable, the wine abandoned on the floor. He looked ardently at her, knowing what she felt, and knowing still that there were no words in French or English, Old Cipritrine or New, that could contain the multitudes of loss. He saw in his minds eye another bed before him, and his mother there in the final days of her life; growing thinner and thinner until she was barely nothing, just a whisper of form. He looked down at Shepard, remembering; seeing Solana holding a hand that grew smaller and smaller with each passing day. 

Slowly, she heard one by one the snap of armor releases, as strap by strap he removed the protective, silvered aegis so important to his people, and cast it on the floor. He turned to look at her, who looked back at him almost fearfully. She knew he was never one for any reason to not wear his armor, except that single morning of the shower - the stark aberration of custom that had set them on this path. She watched, unconscionably and in quiet shock, as he shed the blue visor lighting his brow and set it carefully aside the discarded armor and wine, and turned back to look at her.

She saw his full face for the first time.

Her eyes traced the blue paint running along the sharp edges of his the bone plates of his cheeks. Shepard stared transfixed, their eyes together. She almost didn’t recognize him without it. She lifted her head, tears streaming from her face to speak but words failed her. In that moment she looked at him with open longing, just as she had done in secret, from the very first time she had chanced across him tall and passionate and so full of life in the Presidium. He was to her heart a thing of perilous beauty, and no longer did she care to hide it from him.

There was no translation anymore; they merely looked at each other, lost in a desert only they both knew. Slowly, carefully, he crept over to her, slipping behind her as she watched him, terrified of her own feelings, but as she felt him truly touch her for the first time that fear was conquered by the promise of warmth. He encircled her his arms and pulled her into him, skin against skin. Without speaking, breathing out an anguished sigh, she removed her shirt with its black N7 insignia to just the thin tank top she wore beneath, finally letting herself sit with the reality that she was desperate for his touch. She sank into him, finally releasing, breathing for the first time in weeks. The Turian’s long body dwarfed her, radiating heat. He was so incredibly warm, she thought, the buzzing of her mind, the pulsing of her temples finally, finally slowing. He enveloped her, his chin finding the top of her head, one mandible brushing against her closed eyelid, tucking her into his body into his in what strangely, felt almost like a womb of affection. She snaked her hands up and found his, lacing ten fingers through six, and she closed her eyes as he held her until the tears stopped flowing. 

They laid entwined together, wordless, for so long the overhead lights of her room sensed no movement and dimmed slowly to a comfortable dreamlike blue, lit softly by the light of her fish tank. They silently watched the bright living creatures inside it gliding effortlessly through the water. Stray starlight filtered through her window, casting them in a faint silver glow. It was as if in that still moment they had slipped into some alternate dimension of only them, soft and hypnagogic, as for the first time they surrendered to each other. Their breathing became synchronized, rising and falling together. She could feel the soft breaths of his corrugated looking, odd little nose whispering past her cheek; she listened to it, to him, not quite believing the moment was real. She wanted to check she was awake but she dared not move out of the perfect comfort of his body; the moment so much like her vivid nightly visions that her heart filled to it's brim with emotion. 

Very, very gently she turned over to face him, looking up into his eyes that faintly caught the stars just as they had all those mornings ago. She looked at him, her face now still and soft, grey eyes just inches away from his, so close her lips almost touched his face. Without needing to ask for permission, she pulled the silvery coverlet up around them, shielding them in a protective cocoon of shared warmth. He felt his heart begin to race as she moved closer and gently nested her face into the soft skin of his neck, exhaling. He felt her eyelashes brush against the thin skin there, making his heart ache. For Turians, the neck was one of their most delicate areas, a rare place bereft of their natural armor, where only their most trusted were allowed. He felt her clasp her many fingers on the edge of the bone plate that formed the cowl of his carapace and pull herself as near as possible to him, so close they were practically one. He closed his eyes, feeling almost pain. He wanted nothing more in that moment to lift her face and to press his forehead to hers, a kiss in his own language, but he didn’t know if she knew just what the gesture meant. 

He folded his arms around her, wrapping her in closeness. And there entwined and warm and wordless, he felt her finally relax. Her limbs submitted, releasing their tension, as they lay together. He felt himself drift, almost hypnotized by the ebb and flow of their breathing becoming synchronized again in a soft rhythm that claimed them both. Together they fell deep down in the quiet dark, slipping asleep in each other's arms, weightless in the stars.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The haunting chimes of "Weightless" by Erika Janunger play over the final wideshot of them laying in the bed, lit blue and spooning, before cutting to black. For anyone interested, this is the song that first inspired this fanfic literally a decade ago. It was done by an architecture/art student in the Netherlands I think; she is the vocalist in the song and produced the whole music video herself. Look it up on youtube, it's really beautiful.
> 
> (Haunting female vocals)  
> I get no sleep when you're around  
> Can't put my thoughts back on the ground  
> I panic when i dive by daybreak  
> Wondering was this just a big mistake  
> Wondering was this just a big mistake
> 
> (black screen, credits roll with music overlaid)
> 
> We got no wisdom in return  
> Could grow old but never learn  
> The bedtime stories i've been told  
> Make me tired by getting old
> 
> So hold on tight cause this might hurt  
> We lost ground and that might break you're heart  
> Every time you look my way i fall  
> To the blue that pins me to this wall
> 
> You know me by my daylight face  
> Sweet perfume a warm embrace  
> But if you could see the other person  
> Uncontrolled and scary aversion
> 
> I try so hard to keep the grip  
> Hold my tongue i bite my lip  
> Because you mean so much to me  
> You are still just scared to see
> 
> So hold on tight I know it hurts  
> We lost ground and that broke both our hearts  
> Every time you look my way i fall  
> Into the blue that pins me to this wall
> 
> As they seem to be weightless  
> Every time they seem weightless  
> Seems to be weightless


	9. The Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus chooses the renegade option.

Fused fingers in leather touch a shivering palm. 

_You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance._

A sapphire shines. Tears disappear in rain.

_We will darken the sky of every world._

A sapphire eye passes beyond the lens of a rifle optic; clarity eclipsed in rage.

_I am the vanguard of your destruction._

Blue paint dissolving in water, flowing down a sink. He looks into the mirror barefaced; changed.

* * *

Shepard sat bolt upright in bed, rasping in ragged breaths, the last vestiges of the red visions that bled with Sovereign's endless voice evaporating from her body. The sickly familiar sting of sweat stung on her, the pinpricks of her pores erect and freezing. Garrus snapped awake at her sudden movement, and immediately was up beside her, his hand going instinctively for his sidearm - but the threat was only in her mind. He exhaled, relieved yet unsettled, running his fingers over the top of his fringe. He took a deep breath and looked over at her, inwardly worried. He knew they had only lightly slept a few hours, and it pained him that even in the short respite they had felt in each other's arms that her unconscious had already returned to dread.

“Bad dream?” Garrus asked quietly, moving closer. The little red head stared froward, putting her face in her hands, but the layered flanges of voice soothed her; the very sound of him so near just like warm bathwater. He leaned in, pressing his shoulder to hers, and closed his eyes. He still felt heavy from sleep. He felt her exhale and push back into him, supported. He nudged his head into hers, his hand on her back, rubbing warmth up her little spine; her skins was cold, thinly laminated in fearful sweat. 

Her head dropped on her shoulders. He pushed a little harder, flexing his fingers into the tense muscles near her scapula. She buckled under the pressure, calmed, yet he heard her give a pained, embarrassed, sigh.

 _“I’m sorry.”_ she said, still hiding her face, turning away. “They’re... they’re getting worse…” She said quietly, exhaling sharply, “...It was just...that thing on Virmire…”

She once again saw the massive leviathan flash before her eyes; half-cockroach, half-god, as if pulled from the pages of the old space-horror novels Kaiden used to rave about. Shepard precisely recalled his expression at seeing _it_. In the last memories she had of him alive, Shepard saw no joy there on Alenko’s handsome face as he saw the dark fancies of the page come to form; at the being called “Sovereign” impossible to fathom, inevitable and endless.

“Don’t be.” Garrus said quietly as he closely watched her. Nightly now since their now viral sparring match, she had carved out time to come down and sat with him as he focused the canon’s thousand operating variables into functional perfection. As they had joked, she stopped pretending to care about the specifics of how he managed to serenade the thanix into layers of performance so far beyond it’s specifications even the engineering crew was jealous. Shepard would now walk into the battery with no pretense, and every night together they met was like an exhale; side by side, they would partake in comfortable, mutual silence. It was as if, though neither would admit it, they were quietly making up for lost time.

Garrus would hear the airlock open and look up, his heart inwardly light at seeing her there backlit in the threshold. Immediately he would kick over a chair to her. She would sink in and wheel aside him, sitting while he stood, giving a small smile and opening the concealed drawer at his work bench where she now kept her hidden half-finished stash of ship models. He carefully watched the way she would pick back up where she left off, placing the half finished parts surgically across the work surface, surveying them deep in thought with her fingers to her lips. He even found it endearing how she never read the directions - such the opposite way of turians. Yet intuition, as she had complimented him on all those days ago when they had met in the Presidium, was the heart so much shared between them.

He had seen it in her when he fought her, and then again back in her eyes as they had met his, firing back off each other in that gamut of the senses, predator versus predator, wit against wit. He was no longer upset that she had bested then tied him. He caught himself thinking of that fight every night thereafter, revisiting pieces of it in secret, savoring it. The fire in her eyes when he had beaten her, the way tiny beads of sweat formed on her brow when exerted, the slippery smooth touch of the skin near her throat. Then as if summoned by his fantasies, she would appear in the doorway and then would begin the soaring feeling deep in his heart all over again, the sight of her body sending a rush of nervous thrill through him that felt like a drop in altitude.

He would steal glances over at her while the silently labored, drinking in the sight of her alien, alluring red hair shining beneath the lights. Having only been in flings with his own kind, he had never experienced anything like it, as only males carried any sort of specialized cranial adornment. It was so soft, even in that brief moment where he had used it against her in their fight. His curiosity to touch it, and the rest of her, had grown almost unbearable.

Hunched in singular concentration, she would work beside him, pretending to ignore his sideling looks. He jealously observed her piecing together miniature wiring assemblies and tiny plastic thrusters, all so precisely with the many skillful fingers that came to him late at night, haunting and tearing at his mind when he couldn’t find sleep. He couldn’t count the times he was tempted to reach over and run his fingers through the red satin of her hair, to distract her as she had so pleasantly distracted him; to grasp her, to push her back on the bench, to feel her, taste her, see her eyes burn then close in pleasure, flowing with him movement.

He looked now at the half filled model case glowing across from them; the tiny 1:16th scale Nos Astron Veyron, the elegant Destiny Ascension (she seemed to love the flowing, suggestive curves of Asari ships), and the THS turian cruiser that he couldn’t resist protesting her approach to sit aside her and giving special pointers on. He noticed how carefully she watched him when he grew passionate, teasing this point that as he took great care to outline in more than necessary detail, how _this_ should go _here,_ because he been one himself. He had spent weeks slowly becoming aware of her looks towards him, then feeling mistrust at his own awareness, then denial at whether she looked at him just a little too long, her laughs at his terrible excuse for wit a little too joyous, but now he had his answer. There was no mistaking the way she looked at him as they sparred, why she came alone so late at night just to sit beside him in the battery, or how she had looked at him when he took her in his arms.

He also knew, precisely and painfully, why Shepard had taken such focus to building her models in her off hours, and why she had broken down to tear that chair to pieces. Weeks upon weeks of surmounting pressure, the council calling her constantly to nitpick over pedantic minutiae - and in particular that snake Udina who he grew to revile. It sent him straight back to his days at C-Sec - being told to solve a problem and then endlessly ground down by cynics on the particulars of how.

She had refused to take him on the Virmire mission to his great dismay, going along instead with Wrex, Kaiden and Williams, leaving him feeling anxious and impotent. He had paced around the battery until at last he couldn’t hold his anxiety in anymore. Ever since the rolling green and blue splashes of Virmire’s oceans and had filled the Normandy’s viewports, he had a feeling - an unappeasable, terrible feeling that something was wrong. 

At last Garrus had stalked up to the cockpit and argued Joker down to be let in so that he could at least monitor the mission. The pilot caved, deep down knowing he would have done the same thing if love was on the line, though he dared not admit it to the sniper. He let Garrus in, turning up all every conceivable dial and volume control so they both could hear while the turian leaned over Jeff’s chair for hours, watching as much as they could glean from the helm cams and team communication channels. When at last “Sovereign” had revealed itself, Garrus felt Jeff Moreau push back in his chair in instant, primal fear, something he had never seen in the little human male. While physically wiry and frail from the terrible misfortune of his disorder, Garrus knew the blood in Joker’s veins to be icewater, and like any good sniper he respected him immensely for it. In the cockpit, where and when it mattered, simply nothing shook the man. 

Yet they both froze watching through her helmet cam in shared horror as their commander stared down something that even though the two men were raised galaxies apart, both knew to be a bed-time monster made flesh.

Garrus slipped his two main fingers to the top of her shoulder, nudging her gently. She pulled away in shame, hiding her face. _Why are you so afraid to show me what I can already see?_ He thought sadly, unable to hold in his feelings anymore.

“Come here.” Garrus said quietly, his layered voice softly reverberating in the dark. She felt the hot touch of his skin against her cold body, his fingers snaking up her spine. His sinewy arm slipped around her body and pulled her back into him, back to the promise of shelter. She exhaled in emotion, looking back to him, wracked with guilt. His jagged silhouette was lit silver at the edges by the field of infinity just beyond him out her window. His shoulders and sharply cut in waist, she had come to slowly realize, were a near cruel exaggeration of what she was already led by biology to find alluring. Since she had fled Earth, all her life she had been around turians - considerate, formulaic, linear thinking turians. But this one, this dark thorn snagging a perfect sheet of meaningless process, was different. This one was one in thirty billion. 

She hated the word crush, but it had gone beyond that now. It was almost cute at first, she told herself nervously, tolerating that little irrational spike of adrenaline she had felt in his presence. Then slowly, against her will and best efforts, it had all caved, becoming more and more like a virus that replicated beyond control, slinked into all of her thoughts, whispering temptation and dark, sinuous fantasies from the edges. Her brain was hijacked, wondering at odd hours what he was doing, where he was, what he was thinking - if he was thinking of her? _No that’s stupid, of course not._ And then when she had finally muscled him - _Garrus_ , even the name echoing on and on her mind, so lovely to say, it fit him so well - there she was again. Making up guileful reasons to think of him, talk to him, just to give her mind an excuse to linger. 

And linger she did in the hours she spent alone in her cabin. Lingered on his beautiful voice slipping through her ear like silk, his words, the specific intoxicating cocktail of his charisma. Lingering on his blend of humility and attention to detail muddled in capability and confidence. Lingering, lingering; lingering harder as the lonely nights passed by, on his fingers, at first a curiosity that grew to an obsession grown in particularly weak moments in her shower; those thoughts in particular metastasizing into obsession. Frenzy. The details of his anatomy, his long strange musculature, that beautiful silver crown they called a fringe. Perilously, uncontrollably, irresponsibly, she thought of him; sneaking away at moments to push herself into her wall, exhaling, never remembering having it this bad. And there he was, somehow in her bed, just another little happy accident - like the shower, like the fight. How long, she wondered, until she couldn’t care to shroud her raw need in a protective cloak of obligation.

At his touch, now wrapped in her sheets and against her skin, she acquiesced, not caring anymore to fight. He laid back against her pillows and slid her onto him, where she arced her body over his chest, her face to his. Her heart beat harder as she pushed her skin to him, forcing out the harrowing thoughts of the abyssal creature that hunted them, ejecting sorrowfully but purposefully thoughts of Kaiden, Ashley, Nihlus, and even once tall proud Saren who she had once so looked up to when Anderson had introduced them in-field so many innocent years ago, from her mind. Shepard struggled a bit with the anatomy of Garrus’s carapace until she found at last that little warm crook near his shoulder and neck where she fit perfectly. 

With his other arm, he reached across and pressed his fingers to her sternum, sensing; his dark claws grazed her a bit, sending a chill down her spine. She was overstimulated from her visions, her heart still racing against his fingertips. 

Garrus exhaled again, wondering about her near constant sounding nightmares, wanting to protect her but feeling helpless as to how. He stole a stroke of his fingers down the side of her shoulder, feeling how incredibly soft her skin was compared to what little he had that wasn’t ensconced in bone plating. To him the pale peach planes of her alien fresh was magnetically smooth. Dusted with freckles, addicting to the touch even with the lace of white scars that marred her here and there, the living momentos of battles past. Her body was so hypnotically pliant it was hard to imagine that she was dangerous, but he knew from seeing her kill and grappling with her that fateful afternoon past how sharply wrong he was there. 

He felt her give a little unconscious sigh as he traced the tips of his claws over the fine bones of her clavicle - she was so sensitive to touch. His pulsed quickened, he stirred in aching, trying to push his craving down, breathing; trying to calm himself. But he felt her again reach up to place her hands along the edge of his bone-plate cowl. His eyes opened and he watched her place her fingertips slowly on him, and begin to softly, delicately run them over, feeling, exploring the texture of this part of his body that she had no analogue for. 

“Can you feel this?” she murmured, entranced. She stroked along the silvery edge of the natural breastplate there along his collar. _Incredible,_ she thought dreamily, _they evolved their own armor._

Her eyes looked along, remembering the way she had heard him sigh when she pressed her face to his neck, the way his body yielded, almost flowing into hers. She heard some deep pitched, harmonic sound betray itself from him; a pained, pleasured exhale. She knew from seeing them unburdened from the strict rules of the Hierarchy that turians tended to be freer to take lovers than one might expect, but of course, that was a generalization, and those were the turians on Omega. For all his flashes of cockiness, he had seemed so shy romantically. For someone with such an attention to detail, he seemed at times utterly incapable of reading a signal. She wondered if he, like her, was snagged on the particulars of compatibility between their biology.

She ran her fingers over him, now tracing down the metallic ridges of his carapace, up and down, narrowing down the subtle calculus she had been doing for weeks. Not twenty-four hours prior she had looked into the ashen face of death. She had accepted her inner terror and the fact that it was eating her alive. Then had happened with the Ashley’s departure, the roar of emotions and disappointment there, and with her episode with the chair. 

Nothing made the promise of life, of warm blood and a beating heart, more rapturous than the lightless void of death.

She heard his breaths fall short in longing, growing shallow. She felt body slipping closer and closer, millimeter by millimeter, crying out in silence to merge with hers. She could feel herself burning hotter, that ‘psychogenic fever’ Chakwas had warned her about, smoldering, consuming her. Burning the logic from her mind into unadulterated, wracking instinct.“Yes, but not as sensitively, as...elsewhere.” He said absently, enthralled, his thoughts dissolving as watched her fingers, feeling his pulse race as she ghosted her nails now further up him, approaching the nerve-rich skin towards his face. He suddenly intercepted, his body craving but his mind unsure. Nervous, he slipped his digits among hers and tapped her thumbnail with the end of his claw. “It’s bone...not too responsive, probably close to what you feel there...when I do that.” he said, running his claw softly over her thumbnail, quietly afraid. Half the guys he knew back at C-Sec had Asari girlfriends, but he knew this little ‘glass cannon’ was altogether and entirely different, and from their fight, delicate. He desired every inch of her, but with her soft skin and poisonous insides, had no concept how to have her. 

She nodded, breathless, looking at him with longing, feeling her nerves soak through in dopamine. They were so incredibly close now. Just as with before, her body - overcome with desire, suddenly moved independently of her thoughts. She caught his fingers and encircled them in hers. He froze as her eyes slid from his, looking wantingly at the long digits there that enthralled her. He stared, feeling his chest grow heavy, heart pounding, as she slowly closed her eyes and took his hand to her face. She pressed his fingers to her velveteen cheek, then brought them down, his mind exploding as she kissed her lips to his fingertips. Her mouth was like silk on his skin. Shepard pressed down, the flexible unknown promise of her lips opening, tasting. A small pink tongue soft on his fingertip; his chest heaved, unable to tear his gaze away. He could hear her heart beating faster, threatening to kill him, he wondered if it was possible to overdose on oxytocin. She looked at him, his hand in hers, his fingers hovering near her mouth, her lips pressing against his skin as she whispered. Her eyes burned, grey coals in the dark.

She whispered, " _I don’t want to hide anymore. Not from you.”_

She came into the his inner world through his eyes. He was high with desire. For once as he looked at her, breathed her in, he couldn’t feel a trace of fear. She was now almost a tessellation of how she had looked when he had fought her; the first time their bodies truly met. Her hair tumbled, her eyes slit with desire. He had in his days in the turian military had his share of lovers, enough to know even despite the vast differences between their bodies just the way she was looking at him. Her lips parted. Her breath was heavy and splaying across his fingers, feeling the burn of her against him, slipping her waist closer to his setting his body on a fire. Their hips aligned, touching, pressing. Garrus stared down at her with his mind and body ignited. All of her so beautiful before him; ripe and alive. A strange, lovely fruit begging to be bitten into, nectar pleading to be drank.

He tried to whisper back, two or three things coming out at once but becoming nonsense. She could hear his beautiful voice going frail, the notes sifting low and harmonic though she couldn’t understand his words. She felt his mandible softly brush her cheek, such an odd little thing. She desired nothing more than to touch it, but she didn’t want to offend. Even through all her months of knowing him, he kept so much of his society secret that she had no concept of what was accepted or not. Yet by the way he was breathing, his face just inches from hers, how his other hand had had found its way up into her hair and was softly twisting through the hairs at the nape of her neck, she could guess.

 _“Can I touch this?”_ she asked softly, placing a finger near his mandible, just barely touching it, and he nodded breathless. _“You can touch whatever you like.”_ Her eyes in his, she carefully touched her fingertips to the delicate appendage on his face, running her fingers softly down it’s leading edge, carefully caressing the little dip where it forked back towards its mouth. She felt her pulse race, she felt him shudder; her heart panged, her sex aching sore. Their faces so close now, her other hand irresistibly slipping up, taking his other mandible in her hands, softly pulling his face to hers, her lips tracing against the plate of his mouth, whispering,

_“I don’t even know how to kiss you...”_

She felt his fingers at the small of her back, pulling her in, the rest in her hair. Softly twisting, his claws softly grazing the back of her head, hearing his voice drop so close and yet lost so far away, the tones deeper, soaking through her ears and right down into her center.

_“Like...like this.”_

She felt him reach, his fingers slipping delicately up, circling her hair at the temples and making her shiver as the sharp edges massaged through, releasing the tension at the base of her skull; all the the world beyond them now nothing but gently buzzing static. 

His blood racing, Garrus pulled her head by her hair towards him gently, her face in his hands. He softly pressed his brow to hers, his eyes closing as their faces touched, their breath meeting. She melted, sighing softly in release, the warmth pouring from him to her, mind to mind. She understood instantly that he was kissing her in the highly secretive, seldom seen way of his people. Her chest caved in with feeling, the butterflies in her reaching deep down and droning into adrenaline and the flashes of electric lust radiating through her. They parted slightly, looking at each other, their eyes so close; a rush of realization reverberating now between them. They were body to body in bed, the aching of one for the other laid bare to see. There was no going back now. 

She shuddered, her lips parting as he held her. He saw her mouth move, _please._ He pushed harder, kissing her again. She could feel him almost vibrating, the aroused, purr-like reverberations emanating from his chest growing stronger. Shepard grasped him tightly, her arms flowing around his neck. She leaned in, trying to find the most delicate area of his face, knowing that putting her mouth to his was suicide. Her heart breaking with emotion, she reached his eyelid, and kissed. She felt him sigh, the flanges of his voice beautiful in her ear, the feel of him finally cracking through the protective layers of her mind. She pressed her cheek to his, nudging, caressing against the slip of his ceramic like plates. She wanted to please him; after all the subterfuge and pretending not to see the looks in his eyes, she wanted him to know just how often she had thought of this.

She drew her fingers to his neck where she knew his flesh was dense with nerves and soft, tracing her fingers over him, watching him; he was shaking. She pressed her face to his neck, trembling herself, before opening her lips. She may not have been able to kiss his mouth, but there was nothing stopping her there at his neck. He gave a pained, reverberating moan, emanating a sound she hadn’t ever heard him make. It was just a kiss but _He liked that_ , she thought, her heart racing and wondering if he had ever felt lips on his skin. She drew him in, pressing her mouth back to his neck, opened her lips and very softly bit her teeth against him, just so she could feel. He cried out; the sound tearing through her. She smiled, her eyes burning into him, as he stared back, breathless. She held his hand in hers, lowered her face to his neck, feeling his other arm pulling her into his body hard. She opened her lips back into a kiss, then began to gently suck on his flesh as if on a nipple. He sank his hands into her, she felt his claws, she didn’t care. He was writhing.

Shepard softly laughed, whispering against his skin, the metallic taste of him alive on her tongue, in sweet sarcasm _“You ok?”_ She felt his nails grasp at her tank top, twisting - he pulled her back and arced his body over her, looking down at her, enraptured, breathing heavy. 

_“Lie still.”_

He leaned over her, all doubt destroyed. He had an idea. He pushed her onto her back and pressed her down, pinning her with his weight. She felt him breathing in her ear, his hands moving down her, slipping, her skin on fire. She knew now the whispers, that their species was freer to sex than many would expect by their rigid seeming nature. In that moment she thanked a God she didn’t believe in that the rumors were true. She grasped his head in her hands as he kissed her again, pressing his face into hers. He heard her heart beating so hard the sound pounded through him. She felt him reaching, softly opening her legs, swiping his long hand down her thigh past where he had gripped her femoral artery. He suddenly did again - just a tease, even then a playful reference to their row and they laughed softly, their eyes closed, faces together, her hands gripping just beneath his fringe, pulling him in. He carefully slid his fingers over her hip bones, his claws grazing her skin as they slide up around the drawstring of her pants, then down, down. She clung to him, eyes closed and holding in a cry as he ran his fingers under her clothes, over her soaking wet underwear, clasping her, stroking her, running his claws softly over her keeping her pinned as she struggled through the pleasure. She felt him find the edge, pushing the thin sheath of lace to the side. She finally cried out in pleasure, her arms around his neck, body swimming in anticipation of ecstasy. He reached through, he touched-

_-Buzzzzzz._

From across the room on her desk her omnitool came alight, vibrating electric orange with incoming messages. They stopped suddenly, looking at it.

Buzzzzzz.

Wrathfully, they exchanged a glance. _“Fuck it.”_ she whispered, pulling him by his mandible back to her face, drifting back backwards.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

They snapped to a stop and looked again and looked back at each other. She heard him snarl something ugly sounding in Cipritrine turian she had no translation for as her Omnitool began to send off emergency alerts in a continuous buzz.

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. 

“I am going to shoot that thing.” Garrus said bitterly, staring at it. She blinked, her eyes burning as her pupils snapped tight as her overhead lights powered fully on.

Just like that, the dreamlike blue amnion that had seduced them in warmth and the promise of pleasure split open. The harsh light of the waking world sprang forth, casting them back into cold reality. In a terrible cacophony, every single one of her comms in her room started going off in alert - then her data pads, even her monitors, all screaming emergency incoming messages in a nightmare of sound and lights. At last, with great dismay in his voice, came Joker from over the speaker, fully aware Garrus had not left her room. Beside her, she saw him painfully sigh as quietly as he could, forehead in his hand. She looked and caught his eye in a silent, sad laugh, reaching over and gripping his arm. 

_“Hi Commander”_ said Jeff, in a small, sheepish voice that made her close her eyes and exhale deeply. 

_“Hi Jeff._ What _could possibly_ be the matter.” Shepard said flatly, gripping her eyebrows between her thumb and fingers, still rubbing Garrus’s arm with her other hand to reassure him. She felt him reach for his visor, adjusting it back into place, visibly deflated.

_“I’m, um ,yeah, so, we’re getting called back to the Citadel. Now.”_

She turned suspiciously and exchanged a look with Garrus, who now serious, sat up and whispered _“Why?”_ Shepard shrugged, darkly confused. 

“Joker, why?”

_“We are being called back by the council….and Udina. I fought him off for the past few hours-”_

Garrus, hearing Joker's words and and realized. Jeff Moreau, who he knew saw everything go down on the ship that he cared to look for, had definitely covered for him. Garrus made a mental vow to find out whatever it was in life Joker liked better than flying and buy him the most expensive version of that which he could afford. He knew he had liked him, and even interrupted, he now distinctly felt that he owed him one.

_“...we’re being grounded.”_

Garrus shot his gaze to her and she to him with a look of shock on her face.

“Grounded!?”

_“Yeah. Grounded. “_

“-This is a military operation, _on what authority?_ He is _just an ambassador!_ ”

 _“I don’t know Commander, but it came directly from his office and I don’t feel like finding out…he also mentioned the council are in on this,”_ she heard him sigh irately over the comm, _“...multiple times.”_

Shepard sunk her face in her hands, a wave of dread washing over her. She had been ignoring the roughly two dozen and counting ex-mails and blocking the repeat requests for vid-chat she had gotten from him about “the vid” as it was now called, the now genuinely famous clip off Fornax that had memed its way across the extranet like wildfire. She even received a particularly unsettling message directly from the office of the turian councillor asking very pointed questions about Garrus in particular, making overtures that sounded a lot like he was being demanded now back at C-Sec for “reasons”. She laughed nervously while forwarding it to Garrus just so he knew, then deleted it with the others with no comment. 

“I - I’m sorry. _I’m sorry Jeff_ , I didn’t mean to yell at you... I’m just wound up...How long until we’re there?”

_“Its - it’s ok. Sorry to interrupt -_

_Interrupt?_ She thought, _that was an odd choice of words_. Watching Garrus rise and slowly begin to click his armor into place she slowly realized Joker knew somehow that Garrus was with her. She cringed inside, knowing Jeff couldn’t keep a salacious secret to save his life. The vids were bad enough. And now, with the knowledge that the comments section of those vids were coming to life made her want to throw herself out the airlock at the thought of that getting back to the Councilor, Udina, or even Anderson. She couldn’t care less about her own reputation, but she worried in secret for him, just as she did that day she met him; reckless and high-principled beneath the cherry trees, the pale pink petals swirling at his feet.

_“- We’re nearly at the Hoc Relay, it will only take a few hours….Let me know if you need anything.”_

“I will. I’ll be out in a half an hour. Please inform the crew we are changing course. Get Tali, Wrex, uh, _Garrus_ ,” she said while awkwardly making eye contact with him, “- and everyone else on the bridge. Emergency briefing.”

 _“You got it.”_ He said and clicked out.

Garrus looked over, watching her stand, straightening the tank top he had nearly torn off her along with the little drawstring pants. She gracefully swiped the pure black thessian robe off the floor, shaking the dust from it a bit. He watched her wrap herself in the luxurious fabric, as soft as the skin now concealed beneath down to the floor. It was as elegant as it looked; he liked seeing her this way. The lithe curves of her body looked utterly different not boxed in by the harsh lines of military dress. She tied it shut, turning to him slowly, her lips moving but not finding the right words. 

“Hey.” She said softly, slowly turning her averted gaze up to him. Her grey eyes against the contrast of the black silk and her ruby hair changing to a pale blue.

“I...hope this isn’t over?”

He looked at her incredulously, his mouth agape. He actually laughed. “ _Are you kidding?_ This is the best bad decision I’ve made all week.” A rush of relief washed over her and she instantly laughed along with him, the tension broke. “Just all week?” she pressed, gently sarcastic. “Well, fighting you may have taken the cake there.” he laughed softly, “But...this was nicer. Less bruising. And anaphylaxis.”

She forced a laugh, “Hah, well, we almost made that happen again….But….” she then trailed off. He felt her tone grow serious. She paused, and quiet said, “...I think we’re going to be in deep shit, Garrus.”

He chuckled, clicking the last piece of his gauntlet into place. “When are we not?”

She smiled grimly, her face falling. She crossed her arms, her eyes going to the floor. He heard her very subtly take her “commander” voice. 

“Your councillor. I...know you saw the ex-mail. About you being reinstated at C-Sec.”

Garrus nodded, but stood tall. “I did. Funny piece of fiction - _ah yes_ my ‘demotion’ after my ‘leave’.” He said, making air quotes, mocking the councillor. He shook his head, eyes dusky and annoyed. “It has my father written all over it.” 

Shepard bit her tongue in anxiety, but pressed. “You... never commented? On what you wanted to do? After...the vid...and God knows what they are going to pin me with this time when we get to the Citadel.” 

He avoided her eyes, looking away.

“...Garrus, I know he wants you gone. To go back. Listen, admittedly I don’t know a whole lot about the Hierarchy outside of how you all build ships, but I don’t think they were expecting you to join us...and me. And frankly, I am most likely not in good standing at the moment, and I'm sure the Hierarchy knows that...and is embarrassed...I don’t want to drag you down with me.”

She exhaled, her eyes large and sad and looking into him somberly; caught between the thought of him leaving and the even darker thought of him destroying his options in life. 

Garrus sighed, shaking his head and looked to the side, into the past, into all the days he spent in C-Sec, alone and frustrated. Slowly destroying his liver, wasting the nights not spent hunched over a desk in lonely misery near his window. He could still feel the desolate violet lights of the neon and LED signage outside his window glancing on him, the lights of passing cars sending cold blue squares of fantom light ghosting across his empty bed. He turned his head and looked at her, in the present, standing before him with that sad look in her eyes at him returning to that life, standing beautiful and gleaming in the sensuous garment she had finally picked up off the floor. He knew enough about life to know he was a fool, and enough to know the choice before him wasn’t even a choice at all.

She looked down, disclosing, unable to let him make this step without protest for what she knew could affect the rest of his life. Shepard felt her heart sink, caring about him too much to let him follow her blindly.

“You should know...I think, but am not certain...that I might have broken a few laws...Even with Spectre status, I don’t know how they are going to react to what happened on Virmire. And then...there’s the Krogan element - with the genophage, and my choice there...and now with Kaiden being... _gone..._ and Williams quitting, it could be five different things, or all at once. 

Her eyes met his, the blue faded back into colorless grey. “Garrus...you don’t have to do this. I don’t want to lead you somewhere...that you shouldn’t go.”

He looked down, remembering the twilight of the closeness they had stolen. Every shared moment, all the warmth and joy and fervor cut in sharp contrast to the cold studio apartment tucked into a boring, safe Turian enclave on the Citadel. He remembered countless days in that synthetic diorama of a life - waking up alone, eating alone, sleeping alone. The slow death of the soul that waited inside of the box, the box his father and society kept trying to place him in, he saw it for what it was. The sweet, slow moving poison of a great venomous plant that would dissolve him whole, feature by feature, dream by dream, until at last he found himself having wasted his life, anonymous and featureless as any other C-Sec turian sleepwalking through the scant remainder of his days. He looked back at her, into her eyes. 

“I’m not going anywhere. The only thing they can take from me, that they haven’t already taken, is you.”

She exhaled, holding back a small tear. Her heart brimmed, nearly overflowing with warring emotions as he looked at her. His eyes softened, he dipped his head down, thinking. He continued.

“I told you when we met that I was going to help you catch Saren. Then I told you that again, in this room, right over there by your desk...And I’m telling you again now.”

Their eyes met, falling into each other.

“They’ll need to arrest me if they think they’re going to get me off this ship and away from you.”

“That could get awkward Garrus,” she said, forcing a laugh, trying to deflect her emotions with humor but he was looking straight into her, “Would probably be C-Sec, and I’m sure you know some of those guys.”

He didn’t move an inch. “I know all of them. And I’d like to see any of them try.” 

She exhaled sharply, her eyes welled with emotion, nodding. He inhaled, then exhaled, watching her, unblinking; feeling something bold and addicting slip into his veins. He straightened himself, then briskly walked over to her and kissed his forehead to hers, taking her by surprise. She looked up at him as he knelt his head down, his face close to hers.

“There’s justice, and there’s the law.” He said, his layered voice flanging low. 

He pulled his arm around her waist, softly running his fingers through her hair, finally within his grasp, his flesh coming alive. “And after everything I’ve seen...you know what I think?” Shepard looked up at him from eye to eye, uncertain but in rapture, her lips parted; he could feel her trembling. He pressed his face to hers, kissing her again, drawing her scent forever into his memory from that moment on, and whispered,

“Fuck the law.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (more dorky notes. no one, absolutely no one. me: but what if this was an outro???? This song is pure Garrus in this moment, to me, because dork-brain. It's also a sick fucking song. Listen to it while driving way too fast.)
> 
> Cut to black. The eerie strings of “Ruby” by Tweaker and Will Oldham pick up over a black screen. We hear the male vocals over a black screen, singing.
> 
> It isn't always I am well, sometimes I am ailing  
> Yet in steaming night I smile to downplay this, my failing
> 
> And make a noise to bury all of your weeping and your wailing  
> And then in bed by a little light, I'm closed off from it all
> 
> I must try and bring a conscious end to night  
> And hope that dreams begin to fall
> 
> The color of my dreams, they would be you, Ruby  
> Oh, if I could close my eyes and bring you to me
> 
> And push your head into  
> Make you, not you, not you, not you...  
> But me
> 
> (Music intensifies. Credits roll)
> 
> And then in dreams I wander free  
> And see some things I'm meant to be  
> And sometimes even I see thee
> 
> And would the night go on and on  
> And not tomorrow end at dawn?  
> Whatever mat I lay upon, dissolve
> 
> The color of my dreams, if I had dreams, they would be you, Ruby  
> Everything I do is done to bring you closer to me  
> When you sleep your breath, it blows in right on through me, oh
> 
> The color of my dreams, if I had dreams, they would be you, Ruby  
> The color of my dreams, they would be you, Ruby
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/6L96xE3y1ZZsvFINn0XZ5L?si=d1dead32b3bc41f4


	10. The Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As above, so below.

Pale gold light gleamed off of Jane Shepard’s face as she watched the arms of the Citadel sweep across the viewport of the SSV Normandy, a pale glow glancing citrine in her eyes. Joker raced them through violet clouds of interstellar dust that obscured the neon grattage of the great metropolis etched into the structure's wings, until it at last it parted, shining through with endless light. Shepard searched the structure overtaking the stars of the Serpent Nebula, feeling familiar chills rush over her body as she gazed at the great pulsing heart of the galaxy’s organic life. 

They raced closer, descending, the veins and arteries etched across the great organ cast in an aurora she once imagined as almost holy. Even now heavy with the leaden mantle of uncertainty, it was still beautiful to her. The promise of a world of tomorrow; a dream she thought she would never touch from the sunless gutters of Omega. Shepard turned, sensing Liara come to stand quietly beside her, their femine figures cast one aside the other in gilt-periwinkle blue.

The gentle asari tilted her head, gazing at the Citadel almost sadly out of her haunting wide-set eyes. 

“It _is_ a thing of beauty, isn’t it?” She asked in her soft voice, turning to meet Shepard’s gaze as the redhead turned to look at her, her hard expression softening. Liara’s lips turned into a delicate, melancholy smile. “The protheans _greatest_ achievement.” said she with her gaze sparkling, a girl so clearly in love with the objects of her research; a sweet dream of gentle ghosts.

Shepard nodded, looking at her from eye to azure eye, each a jewel beset in indigo freckles not unlike her own. _Asari were all so lovely,_ thought Shepard as she looked upon her with a touch of heartache. Clearly did she recall, little nameless Jane, how she had spent her gamine youth looking at their species them longingly in fashion mags and flashing across product vids, one hundred feet high and sparkling across skyscrapers. Languid and exquisite from every angle, their voices like music, soft features like poetry; each one a living masterpiece. 

As she ran her youth into the ground slithering through the streets of Omega like an insect, she would sometimes stop to look at them, cerulean and unreal. Sipping wine with their lovers through expensive windows lit with real candles, their gossamer bodies making clothes more lovely, fae glances transforming all that they touched with life. Since the day the asari had ascended to the supremacy of civilization, their sylphlike grace had itself become a lifeblood of the universe, a sweet blue elixir that poured from every source into eager hands. Shepard remembered the bitter naive hours she would look at her own body and face in dirty mirrors; starving, filthy, rakish. Invisible, imperfect, and uneven; turning this way and that, feeling a different breed in more ways that could be counted from the perfect blue that entranced and ensnared every species that viewed them. A cerulean ideal, unattainable and impossible to touch.

Shepard looked at the ageless being before her, feeling her heart crack with regret for ever having thought of her as collateral. The tame, ethereal creature that was Liara T’Soni was nothing like her afflicted mother Benezia, the tragic ruin of a great woman like the colosseum of Rome. In the time Shepard had known Liara, the young asari had done nothing but spend long hours alone. Unlike funny, magnetic Tali or even Garrus with his confident wit and infectious sense of solidarity, Liara preferred to live a world and time apart from everyone that knew her, her eyes and joys in life entranced in the ancient past. The slight blue creature preferred the company of the dead, sitting quietly with her research while tucked into the back of the med bay, content and calm, traveling through time as she read for days while taking reams of notes. Liara T’soni said little but produced much, each day adding little by little to the library of countless grimoires she wrote of an ancient people that only existed now in perfect unity only in her mind. 

“It is. No matter where life takes me, I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of seeing it,” Shepard said, looking into Liara’s eyes as they searched her, smiling a little sadly, “Every day I see it feels like a new one.”

Liara nodded softly, tearing her glance away to stare back out the window as they approached. They had dropped low enough now to make out the massive spires of the business district buildings of each ward jutting like like needles from the Citadels fingers, each one containing a narrow circuit board of city as dense and vibrant as New York.

“How old were you when you first saw it?” Asked Liara, turning an eye back to observe the commander, who she couldn’t help but look as closely as she could steal away with; this unusual woman with an even more unusual penchant for attracting the impossible. 

“Twenty.” Shepard smiled a little, turning to her, visions of Kaiden flashing mournfully before her eyes. “That must be nothing to you.”

Liara returned her look with a small laugh, “Yes, _but,_ it’s all relative. For instance, my experiences are nothing to a Matriarch. I am still just a Maiden in their eyes.” She then looked to the ground, considering, before saying suddenly while turning her glance away. “But you? You may as well have lived lifetimes...I _am sorry_ we are being grounded, commander.”

“Just Shepard, you’re not military. There’s no need for that.” said Shepard gently, her lips sadly turning up at her kind words in acknowledgment. “...And me too. We’ll do our best once we land, but I do not know if the council is going to believe me. So far, it’s been impossible...And that was _before_ the gaffe with the fornax vid....And discovering a possible cure for the genophage on Virmire. ” Shepard sighed deeply, anguished.

“Even with all this,” Liara said as she looked up suddenly, her voice growing firmer, tilting her head to the Citadel as she shook it in ire, “With everything the protheans left us, people still struggle to believe what they can’t see. _It’s infantile._ ” She turned her eyes to Shepard, who looked back, listening as she watched the gold and amethyst light slip across the subtly scaled texture of Liara’s face, “But regardless of what they believe... _I_ believe you. I know what you saw on Virmire...And I _do_ believe your visions are real.”

Shepard exhaled quietly, keeping her face still of the fragile emotions coursing through her heart. She turned away, touched her hand to her temples unconsciously, caught herself, then turned her eyes back to Liara. 

“Thank you. I know it’s not easy. I know it, and I, sound insane.” 

Liara’s eyes, fixed in Shepards, flared with pale fire. Her lips moved - hovering over their words, before she looked back and spoke more forcefully than Shepard had heard her before,

“You _must_ understand, you were touched by functioning prothean technology. You...have _no concept_ how rare that is. It has _never_ been studied. What you are going through, what you are _feeling?_ It’s the first of its kind! And _your mind_ -” 

Liara’s eyes pierced Shepard, searching her, taking a step closer. Shepard felt herself tense as she approached, her lips parting with nerves as she fortified herself to the slender alien; she had heard half-true tremors her whole life that all asari were mind-readers but never felt it bore more truth than that moment as her eyes searched her. 

“ - you couldn’t have possibly been prepared for this. Even the most advanced scholars... _no one living_ has seen what you have seen, felt what you are feeling.”

Shepard laughed disquietly, looking at Liara in a sidelong glance as the asari looked fixedly at her, closer than they had ever been. “Sometimes I feel like you want to dissect me, Liara. You might need a pretty sharp scalpel.”

Liara’s eyes widened, “No - I am - _I am sorry._ I am not trying to insinuate-”

“-Please. It’s ok. I’m just...trying to be less formal, on very good advice.”

“Deflecting with humor, _I see_.” Liara said, somewhat clinically but earnestly as her eyes searched the other young woman's face. Shepard smiled, remaining silent. Liara pressed on.

“I...I don’t mean to offend you, but _you have no idea_ what I would do, what I would trade to see what you’ve seen. Feel what you are feeling. I have dedicated _my life_ to this. And I’ve never met anyone, ever, who has come closer to them, to the protheans, than you.”

The Paragon grew heavy in Shepard’s pocket. She shifted, unconsciously swiping her hand against it, making certain it was still there; burdensome, secret, and ponderous. The redhead turned her eyes away from Liara, staring fixedly forward as the boxy steel architecture of the Zakera Ward port authority as it swelled into view. The facets of stone rolled against her fingertips through her clothes, each edge burned into her memory by touch alone. At last, she spoke as the SSV Normandy decrescendoed to a halt.

“Liara...I’m...I can barely make sense of them, these visions. Every night, it’s this... _awful_ mix of nightmares, memories, and whatever these _things_ are. I don’t know what to do with them. It’s just pieces of things skipping by, too fast to focus on. And...the Reapers, I see them too. Hear them even now...after Sovereign. I don’t know where my imagination ends and the protheans begin.”

Her eyes closed, brow knitting in pain. She wasn’t yet thirty, but already a small crease was forming across the freckles splayed upon her brow. She touched her fingertips again to her head, her old habit of pushing hair that wasn’t there out of her eyes, fingertips sweeping across her forehead.

“I saw them. And Sovereign now too. It’s here, in my head... but I can’t make anyone else see it. They didn’t believe me then, they won't believe me now. But I have to try.” 

She turned to Liara, whose expression was wide with feeling, looking through the grey veil of Shepard’s eyes. She watched the Asari take a deep breath, her lips pursing, before asking in a deliberate near whisper,

“Shepard...do you know what melding is?”

Doubt flashed across Shepard’s face, her eyes flickering.

“Melding? Isn’t that... _the way you..._?”

Liara shook her head, annoyed but not with Shepard. It was the problem with being asari sometimes, she thought sorely. Other races struggled to appreciate the subtleties of their culture past the fantasies that, she wondered inwardly, perhaps her sisters too strongly projected upon their eager, malleable minds.

“ _No,_ not exclusively. There are many types of meld. I imagine the intricacies of some do get lost in translation.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to generalize-”

“-No, please. We are very particular about the way we present ourselves, it is not your fault. But...yes. There _are_ many ways to meld.”

Liara’s eyes turned up to Shepard, but this time firm.

“Listen to me. The asari councillor is, _well,_ asari. And a Matriarch at that. If you ask her to meld with you, the council will have their proof that you are not lying, and _not_ insane. She needs to only look to see the truth in you.”

Shepard unconsciously felt herself taking a step back, but forcibly stopped herself, looking very closely at Liara. She felt the pores on her arms hardening into pinpricks as a chill ran over her. Her mind, and all its secrets, tripped over itself in retreat.

“How would that _even work_?”

Liara nodded, pacing a little as she thought of the best way to explain it, then turned. She held up her two hands in example, never breaking her gaze from Shepard. She flexed her left hand, her graceful fingers catching the light, “ _This is you_ , your nervous system, all of the axons and dendrites in your body. Your consciousness. And _this,_ “ she flexed her right fingers, bringing them closer to the left, “is an asari. Imagine the music of your mind as a drum. But we are piano - able to sing in finer notes, so to speak. Mind melding is nothing more than lacing two nervous systems together in resonance.“ she said softly, intensely, interlocking her fingers, slipping them through each other.

Jane’s memory flashed so strong she saw it right before her eyes. 

_Fused fingers running down her palm, lacing with hers. Warmth through leather, rain falling around them. His black eyes look to her, the night caught within them._

_Her face against bone plate, three fingers running in her hair, pulling her face closer to a kiss, brow to brow; his scent is gun oil, skin burning hot, his face against hers, mouth whispering against her cheek, ‘The only thing they can’t take from me, is you.’_

Liara’s eyes before her. Blue, crystalline, and unblinking in the present.

“You will see into each other. _It is a door._ Once opened, two minds become one.”

Shepard breathed sharply in, exceptionally unsettled at the way Liara was looking through her, but not for malice. 

“Can she...see everything?”

Liara tilted her head, considering, looking away and then back. “That depends on the experience of the partners. The more melds one commits, the more control over partitioning the mind. That is, the degree to which the door opens; the strength of that resonance. You may not be able to hold anything back, but she would, I would assume, at her age.”Shepard’s eyes darkened. She stiffened, shifting uncomfortably.

“So I would be...completely vulnerable? She could see _all_ of my memories?”

Liara’s brow knitted, and she nodded seriously, “That may be, yes. Some of them for certain, what she chose to look through. But this may be the only way... And there is more. If she can see into your mind with enough clarity, _I think_ we could perhaps discern where the conduit may be. You see, from what I hypothesize, prothean technology is all on a sort of network. I’m oversimplifying, but think of it as similar to an ancient extranet. The protheans saw all life as connected, so they created their technology in kind. If we could just see into your mind-”

Joker’s voice came from overhead, interrupting her.

_“Commander, we’ve landed.”_

Shepard looked up, sighing, then back to Liara’s searching eyes. From the doorway came Garrus with Tali, both dripping in armor to the teeth. 

“Ready Shepard?” Asked Tali coolly, peering down her shotgun as she shouldered it one last time, making a few fine, final adjustments. Shepard nodded solemnly, flicking her eyes to Garrus, whose eyes shifted from Liara to the commander.

“Yes. And Wrex?”

Garrus looked at her, nodding as he held his gaze in hers, “His contract is airtight. Anderson signed it himself. So even if we’re getting ordered off this ship, he has a legally binding forty-eight hour grace period as a contractor employed through the Systems Alliance. I looked at it personally. We might be getting ordered off this ship, but Wrex isn’t going anywhere for at least two days. I pity anyone who tries to take it up with him.”

Shepard smirked, looking out the window. “ _Krogans._ Get fucked over long enough and I suppose you learn to make art out of the fine print.”

“ _Exactly._ Can’t say I blame the old guy.” said Garrus seriously, looking back to Liara, who looked uneasily from him to Tali. “Liara, did you bring your sidearm?” he asked carefully, sensing her nerves. Liara’s brows knit, looking at them both with anxiety. “I have it. I am _hoping_ we won’t see any violence.”

Shepard looked to her softly, “Neither do we.” She could tell she was nervous, she had a bad habit for continually forgetting that Liara, though tenacious, was no soldier and hadn’t been raised in combat of one form or another like herself, Wrex, and Garrus. Thinking fast, she looked up at the ceiling where in her mind Joker lived in a permanent state of observance,

“Jeff.” she called.

_“Yes commander?”_

“If this shit goes sideways, will you make me a promise?”

Joker laughed a touch morosely with everything considered. _“That depends, commander.”_

Shepard looked to Liara and smiled with a touch of sadness, “Will you please make sure Dr. T’soni’s research is spared? Put it, all of it, every last piece and paper, in Karin’s care. She’ll know what to do.”

_“You got it, commander.”_

Liara’s eyes flickered with deep emotion, searching Shepard, but she said nothing, giving her only a little nod, before turning her eyes to Garrus. The turian exhaled, his mandibles flaring in disquiet, though he didn't say a word.

“Ok. It’s time.” said Shepard apprehensively, her with Garrus.

* * *

“ _Good job,_ Shepard!” said Udina, approaching Shepard as she walked through the Council Tower’s hearing room, flanked by Liara, Tali, and the turian. Udina came ambling up as if nothing was wrong with a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes, warmly placing a soft hand good for nothing but paperwork on her arm as if they were close friends, “Thanks to your _hard work_ , the council is finally taking real action against Saren.” 

He didn’t touch her for more than a split second until she gave him a scathing look so fierce it stopped him dead in his tracks and he instantly pulled back his hand out of instinct as if he had touched a hot stove. 

“ _Stop talking_. What are you doing with my ship?”

Udina halted, his smile twisting into a grimace, “ _Your ship?_ ” he snapped, his eyes growing cold. He beadily eyed the three aliens behind her, his glance lingering specifically on Garrus who looked at him coldly through the crosshairs of his mind, “ _Our ship_. It belongs to humanity, and the Systems Alliance, _not you_. I approved your assignment to Normandy, Shepard, and I can take it away.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed, then flicked to the council members entering the chamber behind him, pushing entirely past Udina and addressing them directly.

“Councillors, I-”

“We have heard your concerns,” interrupted the Salarian councillor coolly, deliberately looking past her into the shining floor just over her shoulder from his high vantage, “We have sufficient evidence to charge Saren Arterius with treason and strip him of his Spectre status. If he is foolish enough to attack the Citadel, we have approved a cross-species fleet with reinforcements from the Hierarchy, Asari Republics, and Salarian Union to protect us from attack. You have nothing more to add here, commander.”

She shook her head, lips parted in disbelief. He refused to even look at her. She searched the turian councillor, who avoided his gaze, landing last upon the asari, who looked at her with the same pity one would a homeless person.

“You don’t understand,” Shepard plead, searching her face, “Please, councillors listen to me. Saren is not the true threat. He’s traveling with a Reaper - a being that calls itself Sovereign - it is _three times_ the size of any known dreadnought. That _thing_ is sentient and it wants us all dead. It’s coming for the Citadel - for us, for you, and it will cut through any blockade we can throw at it like air.”

The turian councillor shook his head, looking from Shepard to Garrus, who stared at him, trying to reach him with his eyes, and quickly back to Shepard, avoiding him. His mandibles flared with open doubt on his face.

“ _Sir._ I am _begging_ you," she plead, taking a step forward, eyeing him, "I have never in my life begged for anything, but _I am begging you_ now.”

She looked back to the asari, who only softly shook her head in dejection. Shepard felt roaring anguish roil up in her chest as she desperately searched their blank faces. She could see it written in her eyes.

They thought she was insane.

“ _Please._ I _know_ this sounds impossible, but I am putting my credibility on the line - “

 _“Credibility?”_ said the turian councillor softly, turning back to her, then very pointedly to Garrus, who visibly seethed behind his visor; seeing the seeds of doubt bear their awful fruit.

“Yes, _credibility,"_ snapped Shepard, emotion cracking her voice as she bored up into his eyes, "You stand now, _finally_ , accusing Saren of treason,” she shot her hand back, indicating towards Garrus whose eyes were locked in mortal hatred with councillor, her voice raising, “Yet months back, _I watched you disregard that same conclusion_ , that same evidence - “

 _“Illegal evidence!”_ he hissed, but she roared back, _“Sir I am a Spectre -_ if the law doesn’t bind me, then why did it _bind him?_ _Illegal evidence_ if he gathers it, yet _fair somehow_ if I do? What does it matter when worlds are on the line!?”

He pulled his head back, shocked at her; she was shouting. Shepard shook her head, lips parted in rage and abject disbelief. She gestured up sharply at the tower around them,

“This will all be destroyed. _Into pieces._ It will take years to rebuild. _I’ve seen it.”_

A tear fell, at war with her for the past minute, shining down her face.

“And I’ve seen the Reapers. _Yes, seen them._ I am _not_ lying to you. _Sir._ ”

She looked at him, tears welling within her, walking straight up to the edge of the dais which raised them above her. The turian councilor could see water shining in her eyes, almost enough to soften his expression, but he remained as hard as stone.

“Think of Palaven. _Of Menae._ The Reapers will _not_ stop here. You have _a wife_. You have _daughters._..It’s only a matter of time.”

His mandible moved very slowly. At first in disbelief, and then in quiet rage. 

“How _dare you_ speak of Palaven.” he said in a near lethal whisper, but she shook her head, her lips pursed, another tear falling as she stared up at him, then past him.

He couldn’t see the fire. 

But she could.

“I _will_ speak of Palaven.” she shot harshly, “ _You_ made me a Spectre, all of you, to _protect._ And not just humanity,” she whipped around, turning her gaze acidly and purposefully to Udina who stood sweating and shocked behind her, his head shaking nervously beyond his control. Shepard's lip curled at him in hatred, then looked back to the council,

“But us all. I _will speak_ for the people that I love.”

Love. 

The word simply tumbled out.

Behind her, Garrus looked on in numbness, everything going quiet and still in his mind as if he had just missed being shot, sensing the tone of the room change somehow at once microscopic yet seismic.

“And not just Palaven...Thessia. Sur’kesh. Tu’chanka. A thousand thousand others. Those with names, those without." She reeled around, spitting the words out, looking directly at Udina, “ _Earth._ If we don’t stop the Reapers - _if you_ don’t _give me back my ship to find the conduit before he does_ , we _are all_ going to die.”

“She _is_ insane.” hissed the turian councillor quietly, staring down at her. The asari representative placed her hand near her mouth in emotion, the Salarian merely looked on distantly, glancing at the clock. 

Udina rushed forward, “ _Councillor-”_

 _“Quiet.”_ he said without looking at Udina, staring at her, at the tears on her face as she stood before him, half in anger, half in pain, for what he couldn’t see, but was as clear to her as day.

“You...you _are not_ fit for this position.”

Shepard stared up at him, not hearing him. 

All she saw was wires and blood.

Garrus stepped suddenly forward, overcome with rage and agony and flashbacks of his entire life, his failed investigation and firing rising through him like a tsunami, raising his finger as he rushed forward towards the turian councillor, _“You-”_ But he felt Tali’s steel-strong fingers vice his forearm even through his armor, holding him back, _“Kheelah, stop!”_

The asari councillor broke her silence, placing her arm on her colleague to calm him.

“That is _not_ necessary. Ms. Shepard, look at me.”

Jane turned her eyes to the asari, a wrathful tear falling down her face.

“I believe, _that you believe,_ what you say. But try to see this from our perspective. Saren is _tangible._ He can be touched, he can be seen, he is real - 

“-The Reapers _are_ real.”

“I understand _that you feel that way_ , but let’s circle back. Saren’s greatest weapon was secrecy. You have done great work in exposing him, and now with his secrecy gone, he is no longer a threat. You can stand proud of that.”

Shepard watched her as if through a screen. She was patronizing her, talking to her as if she were a child.

“Secrecy _is not_ his greatest weapon. The _conduit_ is. And we still don’t even know where it is. Until we do-” 

“The conduit is as you say, “a red herring”, Ms. Shepard.” said the Salarian impatiently, looking once again at the clock, “It is merely a distraction from his true plan to attack the Citadel.”

Garrus watched the fine muscles in Shepard’s shoulders slink down heavily. They were not even calling her commander anymore. He had never seen her in defeat. It stole her light like an eclipse.

“Ms. Shepard _you_ are the only person who has seen these Reapers, and only yet in dreams and visions." said the asari councillor, speaking very slowly to her as if she had a learning disability, while Shepard forced her eyes to the floor, her eyelids eventually shutting, overcome with tears. "We cannot simply make a unilateral decision on 'visions' alone.”

But Liara had had enough.

The asari burst forth, pushing past Shepard and walking right up to the edge of the dais, laying her hands on its edges, fiercely looking up into the eyes of the asari councillor.

“ _My name is Liara T’Soni._ I am Matriarch Benezia T’Soni’s daughter, and I _know_ you. I watched you dance beneath the moon on Thessia for the Goddess festival when I was fifty seven, with a crown of orchids on your head. You used to smile back then. Back when my mother still called me Little Wing. Which you know, _Tevos,_ because _you knew_ my mother. You _knew_ Matriarch Benezia.

Her eyes narrowed in fury, staring up at her, utterly fearless, with fifty years of academic frustration coursing through her body. Tevos was shaking where she stood, but Liara pressed on, twisting the knife.

“And she is dead now. Not because of Saren. Because of the Reapers.”

The room went completely, icily quiet. With fierceness not a soul of them expected Liara pressed on, her voice full of fire,

“They are the true threat, _the only_ threat, here. And because of them, and _what they did_ to her, she will _never_ call me Little Wing again.”

The asari councillor gazed down at Liara, their eyes locked together, the hint of a tear forming in her eye.“I _believe_ in this human. Meld with her, look into her mind, and be brave enough to prove yourself wrong.”

Tevos’s white lip dropped in shock. All looked to her face as she stood staring down at the younger asari before her, the calculations of her mind as she and Liara faced off laid bare.

“...I can’t do that,” she said in nearly a whisper, before repeating more strongly as she remembered herself and her position, “I _won’t_ do that.”

“Then you are _a fool_.” said Liara, with more conviction in her voice than on the entire dais she stared up to, “And you condemn us all to death.” she looked up at her, her beautiful face contorting in repulsion, “ _Perhaps you deserve to die with the rest of us._ ”

 _“Liara-”_ whispered Shepard, going to her, but she shook her hand away without looking, her gaze burning up at the Matriarch, tears falling finally from her eyes, before ripping her gaze away, pushing past shepard, pushing past Garrus and Tali, and walking out of the council chamber, the door slamming shut behind her like a guilotine.

The asari councillor watched her go with an imponderable expression cast on her face, before turning her eyes down at Shepard, her true self tucked firmly behind her diplomatic mask, her voice mechanical and cold.

“I am placing you on administrative leave. You will undergo a mandatory psychiatric evaluation. We henceforth wholeheartedly support Ambassador Udina’s move to ground the Normandy. You are not to return to it under penalty of law. And...depending on the decisions made by the physicians we will provide to you for your evaluation, you may want to consider pursuing other career opportunities, Ms. Shepard. Now get out.”

* * *

Jane stood beneath the cherry trees in the Presidium, her head bowed down with her red hair flowing softly in a cool artificial breeze of everlasting spring. The shadow of the Council Tower fell over the sweeping clean lines of the carefully manicured garden that was the seat of politics in the known universe. _Like a giant sundial,_ thought Shepard bitterly as she stared at it, looking so closely he could see it moving millimeters at a time, seeming to mock how little time they had left. Second by second laid to waste. She watched the pink petals falling down from the trees flow from shadow to light and back again, drifting calm and oblivious to the nightmare that was coming for them. 

Her eyes hurt from tears, her body and soul hollowed out and empty like no other day in her life. She felt almost hungover, only able to watch as the subtleties of light and dark seemed to play the watercolor pastels of the tumbling cherry blossoms rolling past her feet, broken petals and whole flowers flowing by in shades of pale pink, fuschia, and flamingo.

She watched her own shadow, taller and longer than she was, joined by another in silhouette. She looked up and beside her Garrus stood, wordless. He gazed at her in subtle melancholy, his mandibles flaring slightly outward as he exhaled, watching her. He stood beside her, turning with her to watch the petals drifting through their shadow forms in nearly the exact spot they had first met.

Finally, after a long silence, he said to her in quiet, harmonic tones, trying to lift the silence, “Any word from Anderson?”

She sighed deeply, her eyes closing. “No. Nothing. I can’t reach him. I think they are blocking our communications.”

Garrus felt his heart sink to his stomach, watching the petals drift through them. “That may be...Liara shocked me back there. I never thought I would see _her_ take on the entire Citadel council. I’ve never seen them so rattled. She may as well have reached over and shivved the asari councillor.”

Shepard nodded solemnly, turning to him to look him in his cobalt eyes.

“We have a saying on Earth, “Still waters run deep.”

He nodded, coming to stand closer by her, looking to the exact spot he had met her; alien and silver eyed, so closed off back then. 

“We say, ‘Beware of the quiet ones’.” he looked over to her with a subtle smirk in his eyes, “That is, no one plans a murder out loud.”

Shepard smiled at his choice of words, ever the detective, sadly laughing a touch under her breath. She looked up to him, her glance in his, still smiling. “I think underestimating Liara T’Soni is a mistake I never want to be on the wrong end of. She’s a hundred pounds of archeologist soaking wet, but the girl has more balls than a Krogan.” she looked up at him, smiling in a little dark sarcasm, “I don’t know Garrus, I might be in love.”

“Sounds like someone else I know.” he said, smiling back with his eyes, his voice phlanging in affection. Shepard smiled in melancholy, looking up to him, gazing. He slipped his arm around her, pulling her into him, side by side, not caring who saw. Their shadows merged into one.

‘You definitely attract a certain type, Shepard.” he said softy, leaning down to nudge the top of her head with his sharp chin, feeling where the sun lit her hair hot against his face, and she laughed softly, 

“People with anger and authority issues? Sounds about right.” she quipped, and he laughed darkly, still smiling, “Daddy issues too.”

For the first time since she had set foot on the Citadel her heart lighten and she laughed in earnest, feeling herself heal for the first time that day. 

“What a pair we make.” she said softly after her quiet laughter ran its course, both of them looking back down again at their shadows, his silhouette so much longer and more ornamental than hers. His crest shone through in silhouette in exaggerated sharpness contrasting with her soft curves, charcoal grey in the watery sunlight. Their two shadows so close they were merged at the center, the pink petals drifting through them. So much had happened since their first words, and yet, here they were, the roles reversed. Now it was her being fired, cast out of the sky like Icarus for flying too close to the truth.

“Right back where we started. I guess there is a sort of poetry in it. I would say that I can’t believe they are treating you this way, Shepard...but I can.”

Her heart fell, hearing the way his tone dropped down at the end of his sentence. She leaned harder into him, feeling his warmth run through her, remembering.

 _“I know._ Sometimes I think you’re the only one who does, Garrus.”

She looked up to him, the sun catching in her eyes, making her retinas small. He looked down at her, pulling her in more tightly, feeling his heart tear. He smiled sadly with his eyes, wondering what would become of them, as a cherry blossom flower floated from above down softly into her hair. Very carefully, he passed his fingers to her hair and gently took it out between his nails, careful not to break the soft pink flower. He placed it in her hand, clasping her many fingers shut in his, their hands closing together around the delicate, ephemeral petals.

“Whatever happens, I’m here. I don’t care what they say. We’re going to stop this...I just don’t know how. But I’m willing to try.”

She felt her heart breaking, tears shining in her eyes again as she looked up to him in tenderness. He pulled her closer, embracing her. He felt her pull hard against him as they held each other in broad daylight, no longer concealing their emotions for each other. She looked up to him, wiping tears from her eyes. She had cried so much that day it was now painful.

_“Why are you so kind to me?”_

He titled his head, looking deeply into her from out of his unvisored eye. Was it not obvious? 

“Because I believe in you. Because I-”

But from beside them came Tali and Liara rounding the corner around the trees where they had been slightly hidden from view, and instinctually, they moved apart, turning to them both. Shepard quickly trying to wipe her tears, but it was useless. Liara’s face was wide with soreness, her eyes running, but she tried to make herself look strong. Tali looked on to Garrus and Shepard, having seen them close together, their arms interlaced, finally. She sighed, the breath rasping sharply through her respirator. She looked from the turian to the human, feeling her heart break in her chest at everything that day, and now at them still feeling they had to hide in plain sight.

“Shepard. I...am _so_ sorry.” said Tali painfully, looking to her commander, this remarkable flame-haired woman who she quietly looked up to. The stranger who had taken her with open arms and unlocked the door to her Pilgrimage, even going so far as to give her work that specifically pleased her, including her at every major decision, asking her for her opinion constantly, and even sending small touches of food and luxury to comfort her. When Tali had left the Rayya, the elders had told her to find a new crew to accept her, to teach her ways of life and culture outside of the flotilla. Tali'zorah never would have dreamed how much she had learned and saw since the day she had followed Shepard back to the Normandy, the shining silver beam of hope in a universe growing darker by the day. 

Now as a girl quickly becoming a woman she understood intimately the pain of feeling cut off from the things she desired so much in the world. Of everything she had seen, joy and pain, monsters and miracles, she was struck with bittersweet emotions to have watched the commander, this mere woman of flesh and blood and tears, strong yet vulnerable, who never pretended to be anything more than human. And finally over the past few days, after far too long, admit her ardor for her friend, the turian. Watching them orbit each other like two binary stars - as different on the surface as could be imagined but with the same mass, the same gravity, fated to orbit together, to slowly come together in a dance of destiny had been truly something to behold.

“Don’t be.” said Shepard quietly, searching out Tali’s glowing eyes from inside her mask, “They had their minds made up before we ever even walked in there.”

But Liara refused to stay silent, looking up at Shepard suddenly, her voice still hoarse with emotion. _“I will be damned_ if my mother dies in vain while I sit behind books and reams of codices, while the Council sits on their hands and humiliates us.”

Shepard looked to her dolefully, her chest rising and falling as she forced herself to breath, composing herself. “Liara, I-” but the asari quickly interrupted, having made her decision twenty minute ago.

 _“I_ will meld with you.”

Shepard blinked, confused, then her heart sinking, _“What?”_

“You heard me. _I_ will look at your visions. I have ran it over and over in my mind. There is not a chance that whatever is locked inside your visions and dreams doesn’t hold some kind of key to the location of the conduit.”

Shepard’s eyes went wide, searching her, then looked in quiet horror to Garrus, who looked down at her, just as shocked. She quickly turned back to the asari,

“Liara, _no._ I have...there is so much you don't know- ”

“I have studied protheans, every single day, for hours, for over fifty years. They are _my life’s work._ There is no one better qualified to look at your visions than me.”

Shepard’s lips were open, Garrus watching as her hand instinctively went to her hair, swiping it behind her ear; her greatest tell that she was horribly nervous and uncertain. He could see she was trying to speak but was failing her words, her lips moving from argument to argument but without settling on a single one, and he knew why. His eyes went to Liara, who sensed him, and looked right back at him; her expression softened. They read each other.

He knew, insane as it was, it was their only chance.

“You will not talk me out of this Shepard. Please. I need only your consent.”

“Liara...have you ever done this before?”

“...No...but I don’t care. Better for this than anything else.”

But Shepard was shaking her head,“Liara, that means _you are a virgin,_ I can’t possibly-”

 _“Dammnit Shepard,”_ said Liara, stepping to her, right in front of her, Shepard placed her hand to her mouth as Liara stared up to her, as determined as she had ever seen her, that pale fire back in her eyes.

“I _told you_ it is not sexual. It only means I may not be able to control the flow of information between us, but I will try. 

Shepard eyes closed away from Liara’s piercing stare, pinching her fingers to her brow in stress. Garrus took a step close to her, placing his hand warmly across her back. He felt her relax, very slightly, under his touch. He leaned in, saying softly,

“It _is_ a trickshot...but sometimes that’s the only shot you can take.”

Shepard exhaled in torment, not looking at any of them.

“Listen to Garrus, commander.” said Tali softly, catching Garrus’ eye as he turned, quietly surprised at her seriousness after months of her verbal teasing, to look from him to her. “He wouldn’t tell you anything he didn’t think was true. And neither would I. If we don't find the conduit, we are all fucked. If Liara thinks she can do it, then I trust her.”

Shepard very slowly took her hand away from her eyes, looking from Tali, to Liara, and lastly up at Garrus, who nodded quietly in agreement. After a long moment of suffering, she said, “Ok...ok. You’ve all spoken. Liara...you’re absolutely certain?”

“ _Yes._ I am.”

Shepard crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and breathed in and out deeply, questioning her sanity for how many time that day, she didn't know any longer.

 _“Ok_. What do we need to make this work?”

“I need contraceptives, just in case I accidentally pick up any of your genetic material.”

Shepherds eyes snapped open, her eyebrows shoot up in horror, _“Contraceptives?!”_ but Liara pressed on without hearing her, pacing and thinking like he did when he was writing a research paper, her mind whirring in motion. “...and other than that, somewhere quiet and private. Preferably with somewhere soft to sit or lay down in case we become exhausted. Melding can be physically taxing from the somatic exchange, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take. We might need a couple of tries.”

Shepard, deeply uncomfortable, was about to protest again before Garrus looked to Liara and said, “I still have an apartment in Bachjret Ward. It’s small, just a studio, but it should work.”

Liara nodded, looking at him in immense gratitude. “Thank you. And it is always better to be somewhere friendly...With good energy.” she added with a small smile to him and all she had observed about him in the close, subtle way quiet people do. He nodded, feeling her inner warmth come through her to touch him, continuing, “There’s a pharmacy on the same block. It’s a turian neighborhood. Half the guys have asari girlfriends. They’ll be sure to have what you need.” he said, flicking his eyes over to Shepard who was looking at him incredulously. He looked at her calmly, trying to reassure her.

“It will be ok. If the complete idiots at C-Sec can survive this, so can you.” He said, then looked to Tali, who was peering at him closely, watching. He gave a small laugh as he saw the soft white orbs of her eyes turn up to his, calculating.

“So, Tali. Here’s another one for the Pilgrimage. Ready to watch this day get even weirder?”

* * *

The silver and glass doors of the minimalist lines of the main lobby of the Arlus apartment complex, a massive tower of near identical flats affectionately referred to as “the C-Sec dorms” slid open with a soft whir for Garrus Vakarian. The turian, followed by the asari, human and quarian, slipped through the threshold. They walked briskly, their footsteps echoing off the grey marble floors and walls, reverberating through the cold modern space that held nothing but a few spare pieces of bland commercial art to soak up the sound. 

From behind the front desk sat two young turians, the main security staff who had very little to do in the impeccably safe locale, pricking their heads up at the sound. In unison their eyes slid incredibly from Vakarian, who they hadn’t seen in nearly a year, to the three attractive women in tow behind him, specifically falling to the pharmacy bag in Liara's hand. The one turians mouth caught on words in silence, while the other called over in Cipritrine,

“VAKARIAN! Hey - where have you-”

 _“Not now.”_ He shot back, annoyed, calling the elevator with the info-fob downloaded to his omnitool.

_Ding._

They watched incredulously as he held the door for the three women, letting them go in first, before slipping inside and disappearing behind the closed doors.

The two young males sat in stunned silence, the one breaking into a sort of laugh while the other one just stared on in open mouthed shock, until at last he said, 

“When _the fuck_ was the last time you saw him with one girl, _let alone three_?”

The quiet one, finally able to speak, shook his head in disbelief.

“When was the last time you saw him, _period_?”

“This Saren shit has everything messed up. Up is down, left is right, and Vakarian’s getting laid.”

“An asari, that red-head commander, _and_ a _quarian?_ _Fuck._ ”

“It’s that fornax vid. Who would have thought having a human beat the shit out of you and spit in your mouth would make you a sex symbol. Weird times, we’re living in man. Weird times.”

* * *

Garrus led them through the door of his apartment, shutting it behind them and locking it with his omnitool. The hallway into his space was so narrow they barely fit; he squeezed himself behind the three women, letting them slip through first to the one open concept room in which he had spent the previous six years of his life. Liara and Tali calmly filtered into the small space that was his home, Liara going over to look out of the massive window overlooking the Citadel from over one hundred stories up that was the entire far wall. Tali naturally invited herself to tear through his spare kitchen, pawing through his bar, making small sounds of approval in Khelish under her breath as she clinked through his sizable and well chosen collection of bottles behind the narrow island that separated his one room into two. Yet Shepard did not move past the narrow hall that was the opening to his space, staring on in all that was around her, her nerves finally overwhelmed with everything that had happened that day. She felt her heart racing in anxiety as she looked carefully at everything before her.

The floor was a neat poured concrete, polished at the surface and soft stone grey, immaculately clean like everything else around her. Across from her and pushed directly against the spotless glass of the massive window was what had to be a turian bed, something she had never seen before. It was a long flowing piece of furniture, simple in line and chaise-like in shape, curved convex at one end with a few long, round pillows stacked at the head to accommodate the sharp curves of their carapaces and hips; his linen colors characteristically minimalist in various shades of familiar neutral silvers and blues. At the foot of his bed between the window and far wall stood a tripod with a massive, expensive looking spotting scope, positioned precisely to observe the street below.

The right hand wall was nothing but shelves from floor to ceiling, centered around a long work bench that stretched back all the way into the kitchen. A good sound system glowed near a vast collection of music stacked nearly to the ceiling, precisely organized by title and genre. Dozens and dozens of metallic storage boxes of various firearm specific tools, ammunition, optics, upgrades and fabrication parts dotted his packed but carefully organized shelves, labeled in precise order by part type and manufacturer, surrounding a tall locked wardrobe most likely filled with rifles and armor. Splayed across his long work desk was some armor upgrade still in process, the circuits and internal wirings abandoned in media res, still poised beneath various magnifying glasses, as he hadn't bothered to pack in longer than twenty minutes the day he had abandoned his old life for a new one on the Normandy. Shepard watched him slip past Tali, who was busy reading the year on a specific bottle of vodka, as he squeezed himself into his perfectly clean and efficient kitchen, sliding open a cabinet to take a long fluted glass made for turian fingers and pass it beneath a high end water purifier he had clearly installed himself. After it was filled, the edges of the glass frosting over in chill, he squeezed again past Tali who was now holding a bottle of some obscure blue wine up to the light, walking over to Liara at the window. Shepard watched the tall alien come to stand by the smaller blue one, turning to her gently with the water.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but you want to practice on me first? Dial it in?” he asked Liara delicately, cocking his head back to Shepard who was still standing in awkward silence near the threshold with her arms folded tight across her chest, a small vein showing through on her forehead, “Show this one she’s not going to die?”

Liara laughed and smiled warmly at him, taking the long flute of water he gave her, holding it up and observing the clever turian design with a chamfered edge to make drinking easier for the shape of their mouths. She raised it to her lips and drank, swallowing the first of the two-part pill designed to keep her from inadvertently absorbing any unwanted genetic material. As it was somewhat large, she pushed it her throat with the water, looking up at him, her gaze traveling over his plated face from eye to visored eye, considering in earnest as she drank. She finally lowered the empty glass, handing it back to him, smiling shyly, 

“Thank you, that’s very considerate. You’ve been nothing but kind to me since you met me. But I need my full strength for this...Though _you are_ actually an ideal first partner." her eyes flicked up and down him, "You radiate an aura of safeness.”

From behind them, Tali erupted in harsh laughter, almost dropping the bottle in her hand. Garrus eyed her dryly as she sputtered laughs through her respirator.

“Garrus Vakarian, _starter boyfriend._ You just got _roasted,_ von.”

“ _Shut the fuck up Tali,_ ” he shot acidly, knowing her enough to fire back in full as she laughed throatily into the crook of her arm, giving her a rare swear. He shook his head, feeling Shepard bloom a horrifying shade of red in the background before turning back to look gently down to Liara, who looked confused.

“I - I don’t understand?”

Garrus exhaled in ire, “She's just being an ass. Don’t worry, I’m not offended. Do you need anything else?”

Liara looked around, her eyes traveling over Garrus’s spare, organized living space, thinking.

“Can you lower the lights? And perhaps provide somewhere soft to sit?”

“You can use the bed-”

 _“No.”_ Shot Shepard suddenly from the back, her voice unusually high overtaken with nerves, her shoulders nearly up to her ears, shaking her head compulsively, “No _that’s weird._ ”

“You're the only one making this weird.” Garrus said sarcastically as he walked past her, setting Liara’s glass down in the miniature sink that overlooked the small bar that separated his kitchen from his living space. He turned and pulled out a bar stool for Tali, which she hopped up onto, struggling a bit as it was a tall turian design and like Shepard she was much shorter than his species. He crossed the room and gave Shepard a knowing smirk that only she caught as he brushed past her. He took two of the round barrel like pillow designs favored by turians off his bed, and pushed one into her chest.  
  
“Don’t be a prude.” he joked darkly, looking at her a little cockily, his voice flanging low “I know better.”

  
She seethed, but eventually a smile betrayed her. She averted her gaze as he stalked back to the kitchen to lean against the bar beside Tali, watching. He tossed the other pillow to Liara, who caught it, tossed it to the concrete below, and began to stretch herself. She lifted her hands above her head, took a breath and then settled herself upon it on the floor, sitting in a lotus position. Shepard exhaled painfully, looking from Liara’s serene face back to Garrus and Tali watching intensely from her right, having to laugh a little as she watched Garrus uncap a bottle of dextro vodka and pour some with great aplomb into a glass for himself, with Tali fishing around in her enviro-suit for her “induction port” to share.

“Well _go on.”_ he teased, gesturing comically towards Liara with the bottle, Tali laughing beside him. Shepard rolled her eyes bitterly, “The things _I do_ for this galaxy. _Ridiculous.”_

“Come here, sit with me,” said Liara softly, patting the ground before her. Shepard took a deep sigh and then tossed down her pillow a few feet in front of her, sank down to the cold, sealed concrete floor, and positioned herself on the cushion, exhaling, then slowly looking up into Liara’s eyes.

The lights went down around them into near darkness as Garrus adjusted the settings from his omnitool, before switching that off as well so not even it’s orange glow would disturb them, with Tali following suit. They both grew so still in the darkness that it was easy to forget they were there. Shepard looked to Liara, who looked softly back at her from just a few feet away. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she could see the asari’s skin light blue skin lit in violet and green in chiaroscuro from the trillion lights of the Citadel filtering in through the far wall to their left; a wall made entirely of glass that gave the tiny apartment the impression of space, making it livable. 

"Liara, I am warning you. I...I have seen some things. I have done some things." Shepard said, staring into Liara's eyes, which reflected back at her like jewels in the dark. She shook her head, softly. "I don't care, Shepard. I accept you, if you accept me. I have also lived a life. You will see into me, _through me,_ as well."

Shepard looked back at her, searching her face, taking a deep breath before closing her eyes, trying to focus her fears on the conduit. "Ok. _Ok..._ I trust you. I'll try my best to bring those memories forward."

The Citadel had rotated and folded it’s arms slightly inward, adjusting for night. From the twilight outside, Shepard could hear cars and traffic whispering past the window, sending squares of pale yellow ghost-light sliding onto the wall behind Liara, lingering on something she hadn’t seen before through her nerves at the whole ordeal. Tucked into the corner near the window was what was unmistakably a small altar. Atop a simple metal stand was a small collection of objects. Shepard peered, looking over Liara’s shoulder. Along a perfect circle etched in a sweeping alien designs into the table itself were five objects arranged precisely. 

_“_ Take my hands Shepard. _Here.”_

Shepard felt Liaras hands lace into hers, soft and female and warm against her skin. She bowed her head, suddenly almost tired, feeling something strange come over her mind and body as soon as they touched. She instantly felt herself become incredibly calm and quiet as if a relaxing, anesthetic energy was flowing from Liara into her, like a weight had been lifted from her, yet somehow heavy as if she were about to drift into sleep. Her vision unfocused as she glided into a gentle trance. Her eyes dreamily fell back to the altar behind the fading azure figure before her.

_“Breathe with me. In, and out.”_

The first object on the altar seemed to be a small mirror of silvered glass, set atop a long thin handle made for a turian hand. The second was a spent heat sink, an older model she hadn't seen in over a decade. The third and closest object to her seemed to be a sort of silvery, reflective stone; rectangular and notched as if carved with hand tools. The fourth, to the left of the stone was a strange forked object she did not recognize, set in ornamental, oddly beautiful geometric glyphs. And lastly, presiding over all of it, was a framed picture.

A turian woman looked at her from across the room, her graceful features nearly identical to Garrus.

_“In and out."_

Clear blue eyes his precise color pierced her through time, watching back through the shadows; glimmering in the gathering dark as the room fell away from them, blacker and blacker, as if through deep water.

_“Let your mind fall free. Embrace me, Shepard.”_

Black as the eyes of the unknowable creature flowing before her, no longer held by her carefully projected geometry of feminine blue.

_“Embrace eternity.”_


	11. The Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve.

Liara T’Soni opened her eyes to a yellow sun smiling gently down upon her from an alien sky. 

She stretched her blue arms out behind her as she awoke, feeling as warm and alive as if in the arms of a lover. Long green blades of thick young grass were cool beneath her skin as she came slowly to consciousness from a sweet sleep, opening her eyes to sunlight. So bright was it that she lifted her hand to her eyes, her vision adjusting to peer up at a wide cerulean vault of an unfamiliar planet’s sky arcing above her, so crystal blue and clear it hurt her heart with beauty. She laid there for a few moments, drinking in the sight of the foreign clouds, watching the white whisps far above her slowly filter by like spidersilk, miles and miles above. She breathed in, sensing, smiling; the air was warm with the scent of old trees, moss, and the rhythmic crash of ocean waves. 

She slowly rose to her knees, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She realized she was wearing the delicate white linen dress she had worn on Illium the day she had achieved her Ph.D in prothean studies, feminine, loose, and romantic in cut; the lace like fabric sweeping to the floor with a slight train. It was one of her favorites, and sadly, something she had only worn once. Liara rose to her full height, needing to shield her eyes from the bright sun cresting over the ocean like a blinding gold disc. 

Liara turned and peered, focusing her breath, taking it all in. She stood on a carpet of emerald that gave way to a far sweeping shoreline, cut across in an arc of majestic ultramarine ocean crowned in pearl-silver sand. It had to be Earth. Gently came the sound of a piano being played from her right, she turned, observing herself at only thirty learning the keys. She watched her younger self playing more prettily than she remembered at a white piano in the grass, watching her own hands calmly moving through the haunting alien sonata that played all around her. She listened, not recognizing the song from her memory; realizing something from Jane’s heart had already transferred over, some melody heard and kept at the unconscious level and now flowing through the thought-world all around them. She listened, smiling sadly, watching Benezia sit across from her younger self just as she had done in life, listening to her daughter play adoringly. Her mother's eyes were closed and listening, a glass of wine perched in her hand, her body framed by the lavender peaks of mountains in the distance.

Liara’s heart ached, her lips turned into melancholy joy as she walked past the altered memory of herself and her mother, the scene a mix of her meld-partners memories and her own, following the beauteous music of Jane Shepards heart until they became one with of the waves before her. Liara looked at the memory, her heart swelling with the music. The horizon was dotted with moss green spires of rock, each the sons or daughters of the vast mountains all around her, so high some of them were tipped with snow, scraping the gentle white clouds above. Behind her and beyond was the endless verdant cloak of an ancient forest like something out of a fairytale, empyreal and uncharted as the heart she walked through. She walked barefoot towards the great ocean before her, called by it, feeling midsummer grass thick with violets lush beneath her toes. At last in the sand before her she saw a tiny figure. A small child knelt in mirrored waves washing over opaline sand.

Liara approached her softly, her hand still blocking the overpowering light of the star positioned directly behind the child. The sun was rising above the horizon in morning, it’s celestial light seeming to emanate from the tiny figure, casting her in an ethereal golden halo. The asari squinted, smiling; seeing at last a tiny red-haired child playing in the sand, holding a silver sculpture to the light in silhouette with the ocean breeze blowing through her long hair. Feeling the sand soft beneath her feet, her toes sinking to the welcoming surf, Liara approached. Still shielding her eyes from the blinding light, she asked,

_“Hello there. Do you remember me?”_

The beautiful child with tumbling waves of thick copper hair down to her waist looked away from the silver contraption in her hand, gazing up at the asari in innocent wonder.

 _“Liara!”_ she cried sweetly, _“Of course. I remember you from the future.”_

Liara looked down at the child, her tiny face alight with joy, silver eyes full of love, the golden light around turning them ethereally clear. Liara knelt down beside her, the warm saltwater washing over their knees, her dress floating in the surf as she gazed at the pure little spirit before her. Liara finally took her hand away from her face, her eyes finally adjusting to to see that the little girl was dressed in untouched white, smiling up at her in pure happiness. Looking closer, Liara saw that nestled throughout the child’s red hair was a shimmering green serpent. It was an elegant, handsome creature; flecked with smooth scales of iridescent gold shot through with chestnut and an underbelly of scarlet. The great predator’s long, wiry body was multiple times the child’s length, yet coiled comfortably around the little girls shoulders, the ouroboros of its graceful form woven round and round over her, entwined through her shining ruby curls. Its head was peacefully laid in her lap, eyes closed in repose. Liara looked at it curiously, smiling but uncertain of the strange scene before her. The waves gently washing against their feet, the song of seabirds overhead. She gently asked as she gazed at the great creature lovingly circled around the child’s shoulders,

_“Who's your friend?”_

The girl smiled wide, her freckles glittering in the sun like flecks of gold undiscovered in a river. Liara watched as the little one before her bent down to kiss the serpent sweetly across its nose to wake it. It’s milky second eyelids slid open, the creature rolling a beautiful dark brown eye over and up to pierce Liara from its place on the child's lap, where she gently stroked its diamond shaped head held now in her hands.

 _“I don’t know his name. But he is my guide, and I am his._ ” The child said, smiling softly, stroking the serpent under its narrow chin as tumbles of her hair fell over it like a curtain. It raised it’s head to meet her, letting her scratch it happily under the red folds of its neck. Liara watched as the creature raised his head, dreamily closing its eyes as the child laughed innocently, looking to her. 

" _He might seem scary, but he’s a big sweetie. Completely tame if you show him a little affection. He’s just lonely, and like me, drawn here. We are the same that way. Go on, give him a pet. He loves attention.”_

Liara laughed merrily, shaking her head in soft confusion but knowing to flow with it, extending a blue finger to the great serpent before her under the little red-heads happy smile. The predator noticed her and raised his head up, his strong body floating up as a singular muscle, angular head rising parallel with her fingers. 

Liara watched the serpent’s deep brown eyes searching her with a clarity beyond that of a mere animal. At last the creature outstretched it’s forked tongue, tasting at her blue skin, considering; it’s dark eyes staring through to her. After a long moment, the great creature slowly blinked its membranous acknowledgement. To Liara’s great surprise, he pressed his head affectionately to her palm, nuzzling, practically asking for a pet. The little girl laughed, stroking the great snake along its long, glistening body, _“See? I told you.”_

Liara, confused but entranced, slid her index finger along the snakes brow and nose delicately until it closed its eyes affectionately like it had done with the girl, eventually breaking from her tiny shoulders and slithering fully to Liara, draping itself across the asari’s shoulders in immediate tenderness; it’s cool scales otherworldly and pleasant to the touch as it slid across her in acceptance. 

_“Well,”_ said the asari as the great creature glided over her, wrapping itself cordially across her chest, “ _H_ _e is friendly._ ”

The child smiled happily, turning back to the silvery object in her hands. _“I told you so. He’s harmless, just terribly lonely. We both keep dreaming of this place. We’re bound to it. Marked for it. One foot in and one foot out. It makes living hard....But we’re waiting. We have to wait.”_

 _“For what?_ ” asked Liara, her eyes flickering in mystery, watching her closely.

The girl looked at the serpent and then to Liara with joy and sadness beyond the eyes of a child.

_“For everyone else.”_

Liara felt a cold chill run through her as the snake slithered up next to her face, falling back comfortably asleep as he perched across her neck. Jane’s eyes sparkled sadly, watching him fall back to his dreams.

“ _He and I have known each other a long, long time, but when we’re awake, we can’t remember it, only feel it. Things are so complicated sometimes. He keeps telling me he is curious about the water, the depths, but he’s afraid to swim. I’m going to show him one day. He’ll see. It’s not that scary once you jump in and let it take you.”_

Liara felt herself running cold.

_“Jane...Do you know when will I learn to swim?”_

The little girl smiled knowingly, the sunlight glittering in her eyes, looking at the waves and the white star rising in dawn over them. _“Not for a long, long, long, long time. You have so much work to do, Liara. But you’re going to love every moment of it.”_

Liara saw the sun gleam on the object in the girl's hands, near blinding across it’s metallic surface.

_“Jane, do you know where the conduit is?”_

The child turned back to her, smiling as her hair gleamed in the breeze, holding up at last the silver object so she could see it. Perched in her tiny hand was a perfect, incredibly detailed model of the Citadel.

_“You mean The Door?”_

_“The Door?”_

The girl smiled purposely, handing her the model. _“Look closer, Liara. All roads lead here.”_

Liara took the tiny, beautiful silver model and held it up to her eyes, turning it over in the light. It was the most incredible model she had ever seen, the level of detail unearthly and incredible, so tiny she could barely make out the thousands and thousands of minute, finely turned details. She brought it to her up eyes to look as closely as possible at it, turning it with her fingers, opening the wings.

_“Be careful with it. It’s alive.”_

Liara smiled strangely, looking at her, but then when she looked back, she felt her heart stop as she peered as closely at the tiny object as she could possibly see. With a grave feeling, she saw that the near microscopic lights upon it were moving. Flowing. Slowly, it dawned upon her as the blood in her veins felt as if it stopped moving.

It wasn’t a model. 

It _was_ the Citadel. 

Liara felt her heart stop.

_“...Goddess.”_

Jane smiled, watching her eyes grow wide, the asari looking back at the girl, moved to tears.

_“I know. It’s overwhelming. We hold it in our hands.”_

_“I don’t understand,”_ said Liara softly, her voice cracking in emotion as she stared down at the galactic life flowing through her hands in living light.

_“Don’t cry, Liara. It will be ok. It’s for me to have to make the decision, not you. Come with me, I think we have to go a little closer to the surface.”_

The little girl stood, surf crashing over her bare feet, her little white dress fluttering transparent in the sun, loose red curls streaming beautifully. She reached her hand for the Citadel and Liara handed it to her, happy to be rid of it. She took it in one hand, placed it in her pocket, and took Liara’s fingers in the others, leading her away from the water. She looked up to the serpent still coiled around the asari’s shoulders, saying,

_“We have to leave him. He can’t go where we’re going.”_

_“...What?”_

The girl smiled mysteriously, taking the snake from Liara. The asari watched with tears of an emotion she didn’t recognize streaming down her face, as the little red haired girl walked forward with the serpent in the dunes. At last she found a patch of warm sand and let the reptile flow down from her fingers. Liara watched it gracefully arc across the sand and curl itself into an elegant spiral in a patch of pure light. The little girl stroked his head and gave him a final innocent kiss, “ _Be good, weirdo.”_ she said to it as the serpent fell back asleep in the sand, looking up to Liara with her strange grey eyes, saying cryptically,

_“He’ll be fine as long as he’s somewhere dry.”_

Liara looked up, watching the sun finally break from the waves, floating high and higher in the sky, the light becoming blinding. She felt Jane’s little fingers slipping through hers and suddenly a massive set of double doors appeared before them in the sand out of nothing. A plaque overhead in unpolished bronze read _‘Orphelinat S. Jean Baptiste’_. The doors were, huge, utilitarian, and unlovely; made of old peeling oak with two industrial shatter proof windows running ominous and parallel across the top. Liara peered, seeing only blackness inside. She turned her eyes down to Jane who looked up at her very sadly, her smile gone, clasping her fingers tight as she began to lead her to it. At last they came upon it, and the little girl looked up to Liara joylessly.

_“I’m sorry to take you here. I wish I could only show you beautiful things today.”_

Liara felt her heart break at the sorrow on the child’s face, her large eyes going dark as she looked at the grim object before them, it’s shadows seeping inkily across the sand.

 _“It’s ok, Jane. I’ll protect you.”_ said Liara, squeezing her hand tight.

But the little girl only looked at her in pain.

_“No. It’s me that has to protect you.”_

They both reached their hands to one of the two doors, freckled peach beside pale blue, pushing them open in unison.

* * *

Liara opened her eyes, trying to see in the dark. It was in a shadow so oppressive she felt her skin crawl, unable to make out anything at all. She turned her head upward, trying to smell; catching nothing but mildew and rot. The blackness was so thick Liara couldn’t see her hand an inch before her face. She had to touch her eyes to make sure they were open. She squinted, her heart turning in quiet terror as she reached her hands out before her, trying to find a surface. She touched at last a wall; grimy, wet with something unknown and foul. She shivered, but pressed herself to it, her only bearing in the black.

_Flick._

From right beside her a small, primitive butane lighter caught. A tiny red flame cut through the dark, illuminating a teen girl’s dark rimmed eyes, reflecting in the fire. Liara jumped, startled. But she felt a warm hand touch her, circling around her wrist.

_“I’m sorry Liara, it’s just me. I’m glad I found you. Recognize me?”_

Liara looked closely at her, leaning in. Across the tiny flame was a thin face lit in crimson. Now sixteen, Jane Shepard looked up at Liara utterly transformed. She was as thin as a rail and looked extremely unhealthy, so starved that her cheekbones were sharp. Her beautiful long hair was gone, cut short and shaved crudely on one side, her eyes rimmed in black. Her clothes were falling off her bones, filthy.

 _“What happened to you?”_ said Liara in anguish, drawing her into an embrace. She felt her small sharp body against her in pain; there was barely anything to her. But the girl pulled away, smiling darkly, eyes cast down in a flash of the nervousness she occasionally still carried as an adult. She handed Liara the lighter and lit a cigarette as she held it, taking a drag.

_“Omega. Look.”_

Liara felt Jane pull her by her hand to the black frame of a door. As they approached it, a derelict neon sign flickered above it, reading _Afterlife_ in scarlet letters, setting the area around them in a nightmarish red glow. Liara realized they were in a long, straight hallway with dozens and dozens of doors on either side, leading so far down out of sight there was only more blackness where the were-light didn’t touch. Liara clung to Jane, who lead her through the shadows, and pushed open the door just a little so that they could peek inside.

It was a basement storeroom, lit in neon purple from a single overhead light. Music was thumping so hard that it drowned out the screaming of the three young girls packed into a wire cage, a human, a drell, and an asari.

Liara watched in horror as a lean, male human figure with long black hair exchanged thin bars of gold bullion with a Batarian under the light, counting. Jane kneeled under her, peeking through the sliver of open door and dragging on her cigarette as Liara watched in horror as Jane Shepard, only eleven, screamed and cried and shook the rusty cage so hard her hands were bleeding, trying to break her way out of it like a trapped rat. Behind her the asari and the drell girl no older than her were holding each other in terror. Liara looked over in panic to the teenage version of Jane, only a few years older than the memory, but her face already lightless and dead, dragging from her cigarette in silence. _  
_

_“Shepard, what the hell is this?!”_

_“Trafficking,”_ she responded quietly, matter of factly, indicating forward with her cigarette, “ _I was lucky. Those two got sold to a brothel. I never saw them again.”_

Liara looked back in sheer horror, watching the still very little girl try to outscream the music, banging her fists on the cage. In the foreground the figure, a dark haired boy in his late teens teen pocketed the cash, turning to her with a smile splaying across his handsome face. His eyes sparkled murkily as he sarcastically waived goodbye, walking out of frame.

 _“Kai. My first crush.”_ she said, laughing bitterly as she scraped the cigarette out under her boot and lit another to chain-smoke, _“That was a mistake.”_

Liara was shaking, her eyes fixed on the girls in the cage. 

_“Shepard... he looks alot older than you.”_

She smiled darkly, looking away, then slowly closed the sliver of open door back shut. _“Let’s keep going. It has to be behind one of these.”_

Liara and Jane pressed on in the hellish dark, the beats of the music still pulsing through the door growing fainter behind them as they made their way down the hall. Liara watched as Jane walked forward, still smoking her cigarette, turning the handle of every door they came across, some locked, some open. For the open ones, she watched Jane cautiously peek in, only opening them a tiny sliver. Some she rammed shut immediately before Liara could see, her eyes dark; but on one, she lingered, a sparkle of neon green light splaying across her face as Liara heard a spaceship take off in the distance. Liara walked over, Jane looking up to her and smiling, as she opened the door wide. Liara looked through the door, seeing a bridge overlooking a shipyard on Omega, and on it a double of Jane in silhouette, identical to the one in the hall, leaning forward facing away from them, watching.

Liara looked over Jane's shoulder, peering into the distance, past the second version of her in the past looking to the shipyard. Inexplicably, the Normandy SRV was hovering in the distance. Liara watched it, her brow knitting.

_“Shepard, did this happen?”_

_“Part of it,”_ said the girl quietly, taking a smoke, _“I used to come here to watch the ships. But the Normandy wasn’t there. That’s odd.”_

Liara watched as the Normandy’s port hatch opened and a single tall figure came out purposefully, with an unmistakable crest shining silver in the light, walking fast and carrying a long rectangular rifle case.

 _“Garrus!”_ exclaimed the girl excitedly beside her, her voice cracking with joy, sounding like her age for the first time since she had presented as a teenager. Liara smiled warmly as she watched a teen Shepard lean in closer to watch him, her eyes alight, the cigarette forgotten. She was smiling beautifully, her face transformed, turning to Liara with joy, _“Isn’t he gorgeous? God, just look at him. I love him so much, Liara.”_

Liara clasped her hand tighter, smiling, tears threatening her eyes again. _“I know.”_

The asari felt something softly touch her the top of her head. Curiously, she looked up. All around them, thousands and thousands of pale pink cherry blossoms were gently floating down from the darkness that surrounded them, transforming the terrifying hall from nightmarish red to a familiar, soft cobalt blue. Liara looked to Jane, who looked up in awe at the snow of slowly falling petals, closing her eyes as they fell in her hair, sighing in ecstasy, her face going peaceful.

_“I’ve never been in love before Liara. Have you?”_

Liara closed her eyes, feeling the emotion through Shepard. Her heart was so alive it pained her with feeling, at once both weightless and heavy, overwhelmed with complexity yet balanced in perfect simplicity, harmonized in song, yet ringing in silence. As clear as day, a thousand stolen memories of Garrus flashed before her eyes, absorbing into her forever.

_“No, sweet one. What does it feel like?”_

Shepard smiled as she looked back at her, now her true age, transformed. Her body full, athletic, and healthy; life glowing back in her skin, her lovely hair full and vibrant again. Her eyes still closed, Liara could hear echos of Garrus’s calm voice echoing through the halls of her mind, the cherry blossoms falling all around them in a dream of spring.

 _“I can’t describe it.”_ Shepard, said at last, still smiling, bowing her head. Through her, Liara felt Garrus wrap his arms around her and pull her, combined with Shepard, close in warmth and safety, a dream within a dream. _“It’s so beautiful, I could die.”_

Liara shed a tear, opening her eyes and turned back to the door, watching through the distance. But something was wrong. Garrus, oddly dressed in all black and with no facial paint, set his rifle case down to pick up the teenage Shepard at the bridge as if to take her away, only to have her dissolve in his hands like ash. She watched him, holding nothing but air, his head bowing low as he stared at his empty hands. He stood like that for several minutes, until he slowly turned and made direct eye contact with Liara through reality, causing her blood to run cold. 

Liara watched him back through time and space, her heart racing, as Garrus’s face turned a shadowy black. He picked back up his rifle case and started walking quickly for the door, seeing it. Liara held Shepard’s hand tightly, instinctually bringing her in for protection and pressing her face to her chest, shielding her eyes as a Garrus Liara didn’t quite recognize approached them, pushing through the open door they stood in saying not a word. Liara watched silently as the turian stepped into the hall, his face painted dark and unfamiliar, stalking quickly down it. She kept Shepard into a trance so she would not see, following him in her footsteps, her heart racing. Liara watched the sniper walk deliberately and quickly to a certain door quite far down the hall and open it, disappearing into a wash of clean white light. Liara touched her finger to Shepard’s third eye, waking her. _“Lets try this one,”_ she whispered, leading her down the hall into the door Garrus disappeared into. 

But when she approached, there was no handle. It was merely an airlock like that of a ship, with a strange white and orange hexagonal logo splayed across it's shiny silver surface. She swiped, touched, tried everything, but it would not open for her. _“What is this?”_ Liara asked Shepard in confusion, but hearing no reply, Liara turned, seeing only terror on Shepard's face as she stared all the way down the hall, her lips quivering, the darkness at it’s end finally parted.

From far down the hall a red door glowed, seeming to vibrate with dark energy. Wisps of pure black void licked out from it’s edges.

 _“Shepard?_ ” asked Liara uncertainly, coming to stand beside her, looking with her down the hall at the sickly door, wreathed in ink black shadow.

But Shepard’s eyes were fixed upon it, tears forming in her eyes. _“No.”_ is all she said, a whisper. Suddenly from all around them, Liara heard a terrible, mechanical roar so loud and infinite it shook her to her core, threatening to deafen her; a scream so great and terrible it shook the hall as if in an earthquake, her and Shepard ducking instinctually and covering their ears.

_BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_

_“No, NO it’s starting!”_ screamed Jane, transformed back into a child, her hands pressed to her ears, face in pain, clinging to Liara’s leg, burying her face into her. 

Liara looked up in sheer horror as the door dripped through with blood, marbled in every color, seeping down in overflow from its seams. 

_BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_

The terrible red door at the end of the hall shook so violently that it finally broke free of its hinges and rushed closer, screaming that awful, deathly horn.

Liara shielded Shepard, kneeling down with her arms around the little girl as she cried, clinging to her in terror, picking her up and putting her to her hip, the asari turning and running from the horror as fast as her legs would take her on instinct - running, running. Trying to outrun the cosmic terror that licked at their heels, roaring infinitely in a promise of death.

Liara, in sheer terror, banged hard against the first door they had come through, the orphanage. Holding Shepard in one arm, crying, jamming her hand against the locked handles that wouldn’t give with the other, she pushed and pushed; screaming.

Screaming just like the trapped girls in the cages as she realized in black dread that the entry was locked from the other side, the roar of the reapers coming from only other direction. 

_BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_

Liara slammed her whole weight against it, throwing her body against the orphanage door, throwing biotics, anything - at their only escape uselessly; pleading, crying, praying to the Goddess, but it would not move. Above her, the cherry blossom petals had turned into a rain of blood. She felt the air forcing out of out of her as the red door rushed them and pushed her, crushing her against the orphanage door, the reaper screams tearing through her body, atom by atom, Shepard screaming in terror at her chest.

Finally Liara turned, dripping black-red, her dress dyed a terrible crimson in the rain of human blood, screaming with all her might at the door that crushed her in rage, finding the handle, crying out-

_"I AM LIARA T’SONI, AND YOU WILL NOT SCARE ME!"_

And pushed through, opening the terrible door to a field of stars.

* * *

Jane Shepard’s eyes opened, adjusting slowly to the darkness of the room around her. She slipped her hand up to her head, feeling hollow, trying to remember. She sat up slowly, blinking herself awake after what felt like days, the silvery linens slipping down her body, hot with fever. From before her in the dark, a figure turned away from a desk, looking back at her. 

“Hey,” said the turian gently, coming to her to place a hand on her head, looking at her with warmth, “You’re finally awake.”

  
  
  


  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://open.spotify.com/track/2x5cekxLZVVhu0FdCfIXlR?si=AQnIb7NRQq6CuWBrzyFSRg


	12. Sakura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The keepsake was a triple cherry blossom layered one with a misty moon reflected in water…he wrote on the fan, 
> 
> ‘All that I now feel, I have never felt before, as the moon at dawn melts away before my eyes into the boundless heavens.'”
> 
> -The Tale of the Genji

Her eyes burned in sickness, aching even to move to use them. Shepard winced, her eyelids closing as she felt Garrus slide his warm hand down her face, feeling her forehead as it burned hot from residual fever. She felt the mattress, soft to accommodate the hard lines of turian bodies sink beneath her as he sat down beside her on his bed. She looked up as he handed her an enormous glass of cold water in one of his long turian flutes, continually wary of how quickly she seemed to dehydrate compared to his own kind. 

It was late, the interior lights of his immaculate apartment dimmed down only to a tiny pool of light on his desk that was just enough for himself to see without waking her, as busied himself with the armor upgrade he had abandoned the day that he left. The dusken colors of deep nightfall filtered over them, setting their bodies one beside the other in a calm indigo, flush at the edges with the fuchsia from the dense metropolitan signage outside the glass. Garrus looked to Shepard’s face in concern, at last after an uncertain pause leaning in and fussing with the blankets he had laid her in. She smiled weakly in affection, watching him tiredly as he unnecessarily tucked his coverlets around her body tighter for some unknown reason, yet she found no strength to fight him. Every muscle in her body felt run through and inflamed, as if she had been dragged through hell.

 _“Thanks, mom.”_ she said, eyeing him with a smile though her voice was weak, as he reached behind her and adjusted the pillow she lay on, softening it for her head. He looked at her, rolling his eyes and shaking his head a bit but said nothing. He leaned back, sighing, and removed his visor, something he only did around her now. He set it aside to look at her with his unfiltered eyesight as he looked over her tired face. 

Having observed her sleep for several hours, facing away from her out of politeness but turing back to look at her every time he heard a small noise come from her or heard her stir, he already knew he wasn’t going to tell her that Liara had wiped her memory of the meld. He had watched, wordless and incredulous, as the asari disrupted the genetic markers containing the memories from Shepard's forehead through her fingertips; something he didn’t know their species - who played their rare abilities very close to their chest - could do. He wished he had such talent, that he could erase from his mind what he had heard tumble out of Shepard’s mouth in the deepest part of the meld, half-animal, half-french, as he had to kneel hold her from thrashing. Liara had wept tears from black eyes while Tali held herself, praying in Khelish over a set of ancestor beads he didn’t know she carried.

In the feudal times of vassals and vagabond warriors, when turian clan colors still meant something in the dark days when brother would turn against sister to spill blood for parcels of land and bags of grain, they used to say that asari were witches from the sky. He always thought it was preposterous, how could even ancient people be so stupid? But now, after what he bore witness to in the dark ritual that played across his own floor, he finally understood the nascent fear that his people carried of the blue, otherworldly women who descended from the clouds.

“How do you feel?” he asked in his low phlanging tones, his eyes catching the light and glowing slightly as they reflected the evening as he looked at her. She felt him place his hand over hers, his fingers, warm and leathery with their long nails slipping softly through hers. She exhaled, pressing her hand to her head, desperately trying to remember what she had seen, grasping his fingers tight. She clenched her eyes shut, straining, but all she could remember was, inexplicably, the cool scales of a snake.

“Not good.” she said truthfully. She felt awful, sighing inwardly, wondering when the day would come that he wasn’t going to constantly see her in a state of ragged weakness, when she could finally be strong for him. 

“Your past forty eight hours have been an absolute nightmare. I would be shocked if you felt like anything other than hell.” said Garrus, still looking at her tenderly, the silvery plates of his forehead and brow tight together in concern. 

“What happened?” she asked carefully, yet afraid to hear the answer. Aside her Garrus thought deeply, turning his head a touch away from her as he chose his words to give her an edit of the truth he felt was fair. “You collapsed during the deepest part of the meld. You’ve been unconscious ever since. Liara thinks it’s your bodies’ way of protecting itself...Whatever happened between you two, apparently you both went somewhere deep.” he said, bowing his head it’s silvery crest arcing downward as his eyes shifted to the floor. “Liara and Tali left after they convinced me not to get you to a doctor.”

Shepard’s eyes flicked to his, but he wouldn’t look at her. She squeezed his hand tighter, pulling him in close to make him look at her. He turned slowly, his mandibles shifting in disquiet. Seeing the look on his face, Shepard felt her heart sink; she did not want him to ever need to look at her in what pity he did now. She turned her eyes downard as he continued, slowly. “They’re convinced if we admit you to a hospital you would be poked and prodded in your vulnerable state. That the council would send their people... and that they could possibly twist your mental state into whatever case they are building to discredit you.”

Shepard felt herself growing numb. 

“What do you mean my ‘mental state’?” she asked carefully. He turned back to her, looking at her from eye to eye in deep concern. He nodded, answering softly,

“I don’t know, most of it was in your mother-tongue that I didn’t catch,” he misguided, hoping she didn’t realize that the translator that he had stolen from C-Sec was excellent and updated with all of Earth’s obscure tribal languages, “...but from what we did understand, well. We didn’t want any of that getting out.” She watched his eyes flicker, then look fixedly away. “It’s private. No one’s business.” he said at last, his tones full of care, but firm.

Shepard felt her heart sinking, her brow knitting in torment. She squeezed his fingers so hard it was hurting him, but he let her. She felt him clasp back, their hands locked together as they sat together in the dark, the ghastly shadow of the trauma of the evening lingering heavy in the air. She pursed her lips in anxiety as she searched his face, wracked with unplaceable guilt, asking,

“Where is Liara? Is...she alright?”

Garrus nodded reassuringly, “Liara’s fine,” he calmly lied, gliding the deception into the truth the way he had mastered as as interrogator, “...she says you have a very special, very strong mind, whatever that means. She said, forcefully, that without the context she saw there in your memories that there is no way to explain what you were seeing to any medical professional without them _getting ideas._ So here we are. In the lap of luxury.” he said a little sarcastically, gesturing around the room, before turning back to her and warmly rubbing her bicep, his thumbnail stroking her reassuringly, 

“So you’re going to lay low with me until they unpack what she saw, and we figure out what to do.”

Shepard placed her free hand to her forehead, exhaling in torment at the weight of his words, too scared to even ask what she had been saying in her state of delirium. 

“What about Anderson? We-”  
  
“-I reached out to him personally, through an old back door Tali found in my C-Sec portal that those idiots still haven’t closed out. There’s no way they aren’t monitoring your comms by now, Shepard. If we hear from him, it will be through one of us. We shut off your omnitool’s exmail and global positioning transfer protocols. You’re going to be dark for a while.” he said softly, watching her sink back, overwhelmed with shame. After a great length of silence, she finally spoke, her register low and serious,

“Garrus. I am so sorry. I have really, really not been my best for the past few days, I-”

But he shut her right down, leaning in and stroking her hair to make her look at him, his nails stroking past her temple, turning her to face him,

“In forty-eight hours, you did the following: accidentally discovered the first viable cure to the genophage _and_ were crazy enough to give it to Wrex... lost one of your oldest friends, talked to a reaper, had Williams throw a tantrum and quit, _got your ship grounded - look,”_ he turned her her, cracking up, _“I’m running out of fingers.“_

His comedic timing was perfect, switching from serious to incredulous on a dime. She watched him smile at her with his eyes, as he listed off the objectively insane list of events that had occured over the strangest two days of her life on only six fingers. His lovely voice shook through with soft laughter as she laughed right along with with him as he had to restart counting, leaning into her to nudge her with his shoulder, hiding behind her hand,“-- _wait wait, there’s more_ , hold on, let’s see - _went toe to toe with the Citadel Council,_ got accused of being insane, _effectively got fired,_ oh - and had an asari mind meld to find an ancient alien weapon that _no one but us believes exists,_ right here on my floor in a studio apartment in Bachjret Ward. Did I miss anything?” he demanded, eyeing her sarcastically. Completely cracked from exhaustion, she was cry laughing behind her hands,

“...we _also_ almost had sex?”

 _“Oh yes, that extremely minor detail,”_ he laughed, eyes sparkling playfully, and she collapsed forward into her knees, her whole body shaking in pained hysterics, utterly gone with the ridiculousness of it all. He leaned forward, running his hand down his crest, laughing softly along with her, the first moment of mirth they had in what felt like eternity. 

“Damn Shepard, that’s _technically two species_ in about an eight hour time period. If we find a willing stranger, that could be some kind of record.”

“Stop it hurts to laugh,” she cried, her face hidden in her knees, her shoulders shaking, but of course, we weren't going to let it go. He leaned in, running his hand warmly down her arm, flirting, “You know, there’s a hanar water bar not too far from here _, ‘This one would like to enkindle the red-head.’_ ” he teased in a flat voice, and she laughed even harder, overcome as he nudged her affectionately. A very small voice came up from her in response in a slow deadpan, 

_“....Offended: Why not elcor?”_

_“Elcor?”_ he shot dryly, turning to her as she snickered, “ _Y_ ou _are_ _dirty._ ” he teased, his low voice flanging suggestively on the world, ‘dirty’. He leaned in, going an octave lower, knowing it’s effect on her, “I’m sure we could make that happen Shepard, but you might need even more industrial grade lubricant than you would need to make the interspecies thing work with me.”

 _“Industrial grade?_ ” she remarked weakly, her eyebrows raised in a tired smirk. She felt horrible, yet already slightly better, “What am I, the thanix cannon?”

“ _Please._ You’ll be _far_ easier to get off than that thing.”

She absolutely lost it at that, wincing in pain as she softly cry-laughed into her hands, him laughing a touch dirtily as he watched her shrink behind her hand, more than a little shocked at him but very clearly enjoying herself, eventually meeting his eye through her laughter, smiling happily. She had long sensed that he had a touch of a debased sense of humor. It was overwhelmingly pleasing to her to finally hear him comfortable enough to use it with her. It was just another one of the things about him that she found addictingly, refreshingly lovely.

“I don’t even know what to say to that, Garrus.”

He dryly rebuked, not missing a beat, “Probably some kind of calibration joke. Trust me, I’ve heard them all."

He turned back to her as she laughed softly, slowly rolling herself off her back to stretch herself but to his surprise, she did not get up or attempt to move away. She looked down at herself, her eyes traveling over her white on black-and-grey reinforced alliance clothing dejectedly, staring at the uniform that had been commissioned specially for her, the only spectre of her kind; wondering if everything she had been through had been worth it. It would have been so much easier, she thought, to just take orders. Not think. Just run where they told her to run, believe what they told her to believe. But of course, she had already lived that life in so many ways in the shadows of Omega.

“I don’t want to make this awkward,” she said quietly, but it’s clear we’re not going anywhere for a while. Can I take this off? It’s not like I need it anymore anyway. I feel cold; I think I’ve been sweating in this for hours.”

“Absolutely... do you…. _need anything_?” he asked, glancing around nervously as she took off her shirt, folding it automatically in the precise manner Kaiden had shown her all those years ago, then her pants, following suit. He watched her closely; enjoying the way her black undergarments contrasted against her pale skin, his eyes sifting over the curve of her waist before feeling a tinge of guilt, knowing she was feeling ill, “I...admittedly have no idea if I own anything that would fit you.”

“No, it’s ok. I don’t care if you don’t.” she said, tucking herself back into his bed politely, but giving a little smirk as she watched him clear his throat and turn away, doing _that thing_ he did sometimes with his head when he was nervous that definitely looked bird-like. She decided to let it go.

“I don’t.” he said, then sarcastically unsnapped a piece of his armor in exaggeration, cocking his head, trying to cheer her, _“Want to see this come off again?”_

She laughed darkly, “Yes please. _Slow_ , so I can record it for Fornax.” Garrus chuckled, standing to unsnap his gauntlets, eyes down at the work of undressing himself as he joked, “Ah, part two. We really need to get royalties so we can retire early. We never go anywhere nice, this luxury apartment notwithstanding.” Yet about halfway through his second gauntlet, he paused, still feeling racked with quiet guilt, turning to her.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, seriously. Her expression flickered at the question she didn’t expect. He watched her, considering herself,

"I can’t remember...I feel a bit sick."

"You're sick because you're starving. I cannot remember the last time I watched you eat anything that wasn’t coffee. Hold on a minute, I thought of this."

Garrus set aside the one gauntlet he had taken off before getting distracted, stalking across his dark apartment to the little refrigeration unit tucked with his cabinet. Shepard watched him incredulously as he extracted a cheerful, decorative takeout container and human chopsticks, reapproaching her to sit with her. She watched in quiet wonder as he opened the container, presenting a beautiful bento of grilled unagi, rice, tsukemono, and tsunomuno.

She looked at him in complete shock; it was one of her favorite meals, presented before her in uncanny perfection. She looked up at him in wonder, he looked back at her, his electric blue gaze unshaken. Carefully, delicately, he set it down between them on the bed. It's seductive, fresh scent filled her senses; she felt her stomach growl painfully.

“How _the hell_ did you know I like this? I didn’t even know this had this here."

He chuckled, his voice phlanging low, “ _Thank Liara._ She knows all kinds of strange details about you now. Now, eat this and show me how your people manage to eat _with sticks._ ”

She laughed softly, still eyeing him incredulously, picking up the pretty envelope containing the chopsticks fabricated from a quick growing genetically engineered bamboo. She eyed him mysteriously as he watched her, continually and utterly amazed at his attention to detail. He watched the human ritual intently; she split the chopsticks apart, checking for splinters. His eyes followed as she slipped the ends of the sticks though the fingers in her right hand; his eyes entranced at the deftness of her five fingers compared to his three.

“Wow.” he said softly at the alien, enchanted. She smiled at him, “Observe.” Garrus watched Shepard flex the long sticks between her thumb, index and middle finger, reaching over to slip a single slice of pickled cucumber out from the little stack of tsunomuno, and raised it up for him to see.

“That’s... _incredible_.” he said, fascinated by her range of mobility. She smiled, feeling strange and innocent all of a sudden, realizing that after all the time they had spent together; warring, planning, examining planets, forcibly ignoring each other in extreme sexual tension - that they had never taken the time to do something as simple together as eat. Suddenly, she felt guilty for eating in front of him, doubt flashing before her eyes.

“What about you? Did you eat?”

“What? No, don’t worry.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to eat in front of you. It’s considered rude if I do and you don’t have anything.”

 _“Really?_ Then how do you ever get anything done on Earth?” 

She smiled, seeing him smile back a little with his eyes. There was still so much they didn’t know about each other and the worlds they both came from. “Well, don’t worry about it,” he reassured, his eyes going back to her fingers, “I’ll take you to an actual restaurant. Next time, we’ll do this right. When the universe _isn’t_ falling apart.” he added a bit darkly.

Shepard looked up at him, smiling purely at that, her heart growing a little light.

“You mean...on a date?”

He looked at her affectionately, warmth emanating from him, just as Liara had observed. He looked over at her. She felt her heart grow light as he looked at her matter of factly.

“Well, _yeah._ Anywhere you want to go. Anywhere they’ll let me in the door, that is.” he joked, catching her eye. She smiled sweetly, her face lighting up in the rare sunlit beauty that tore at him every rare time she shone through with true happiness. The mere thought of them going somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t a war torn hellscape or a council meeting where one of them was getting fired balmed over the horrors of the past few days. What he didn’t know as he looked at her, running a wave of her hair back behind her ear while she ate, was that between everything she had lived through and how hard she had thrown herself into military service, that she had never actually been on a date before; something she was deeply, bitterly ashamed of and blamed herself for. 

In truth, it was because her vulnerability was binary. Either all open or all closed, her heart was a door that hinged completely on trust, which had been so abused by her own species that it was nearly non-existent. The closest she had come to any true mutual relationship had been with Kaiden, and of course, she didn’t realize at the time that he preferred men. She had tortured herself over it, _you really know how to pick them,_ she would think tempestuously; but the soreness of her mistake had blossomed over into a lovely friendship, which in many ways, she wondered if she was better for. 

She smiled, looking away from Garrus, imagining what life would be like with him. Liara’s observation at his window had struck her, her soft voice echoing in her mind. He really did radiate safety. Tali may have laughed, but to her hidden heart held together with sheer force of will, it was the sweetest lure she could imagine. He had been nothing but honest with her, gentle as he was with her now, and loyal in friendship since the moment they had met. The familiar memory of him there that first moment flashed across her mind, the cherry blossoms sifting past him, the color of the petals burned into her with painstaking clarity; fuschia-rose drifting against the navy of his armor.

Kaiden had always told her, when her eyes went far away like they did at that moment, at some memory too beautiful or terrible to bear, that she had a memory like a Drell. In her youth she would roll her eyes at the tease, but now, she wasn’t so certain anymore. The more she saw, the more she found herself sitting and staring into the past at things that felt more real than the world around her, wondering if like so much else in her unusual life his words hid some strange prophecy. Her memory, she had come to quietly realize, was the reason she forced herself into motion at every chance she could; running as fast into work from the darkness of the past with all its precise details written with oppressive clarity in her mind. Each piece of the past was locked behind endless doors that she kept forcibly shut, yet would, nevertheless in solipsism, break free from their tethers and manifest; dragging her back in time. 

“I’d really love that.” she said at last quietly, feeling his eyes on her that rooted her to the present. Overcome with sudden emotion, she looked into his blue eyes tenderly, she knew this is what she craved so much about the turian before her as she heard him ask “ _Where would you want to go?”_ a touch anxiously. She smiled at him longingly, reaching for his hand and running her fingers through his, feeling the life within him and forcing herself to observe what was right in front of her.

“Anywhere. As long as I'm with you.” 

Garrus looked up, their eyes meeting. She felt her heart ache with pain, finally understanding why she had grown to love him, her mind not shying away from the word since it had fallen out of her mouth in front of the council. He didn’t live in the past or the future; rather he existed in exquisite liminality, balanced firmly in the present.

Garrus looked back at her through the soft dark. He felt her move across the mattress, coming over to him, her grey eyes soft. Her hands slipped against his face as she pressed her forehead to his, the way he had taught her. She pulled away, looking at him closely, then knelt over him. She reached over delicately to start helping him with his armor; an incredibly intimate thing that he didn’t quite expect. He let her, sensing that she wanted to do this for him as an act of affection. He felt himself grow heavy with emotion, watching her hands moving lovingly across him, pulling off the metal pieces that ensconced him one by one, placing them down on the floor with care, knowing how much they meant to him, how sacred. He closed his eyes, feeling her hair fall silken across his face as she rose up on her knees, lightly beginning to tug at the seams near his carapace that held the pieces of his aegis to his body.

As he felt her so near to him, carefully working his armor loose for him with incredible tenderness, he looked across the apartment that he had lived in for years, remembering how cold it had felt; so pitiful and empty of life that abandoning it felt like nothing. But now as he looked at Shepard with her features fragile as he had never seen them with love, listening to the soft sounds of her carefully picking through the latches holding him together while the traffic whispered outside his window. He felt his soul exhale inside of his body after what felt like years of holding his breath. 

Garrus quietly turned as Jane’s fingers worked over him to the small table where he had kept his spirit altar with his picture of his mother. He had taken it himself, the shot observed at her busy desk as she looked up in surprise from her piles of work and scattered cups of tea to his welcome interruption. He watched the glow of the evening lights glide across the frame, then looked to the woman nearest to him now knelt beside him, delicately caressing off his protective layers, finally understanding.

He looked back to her, slipping his fingers through her hair to bring her face to his, his thumb gliding over and caressing her chin. She looked at him with her silvery eyes full of feeling as he pressed his forehead to her in another kiss. He felt her push back, slipping down to move her face against his in emotion, her hands still on the clasps of his breastplates. He reached to the sides of his chest, pulling it free, his eyes in hers, feeling her softly run her hands down the sides of his face, her eyes filled with devotion. Suddenly like a breath of snow, dozens of the cherry blossoms they had previously stood under came filtering out, having fallen into the dip of his carapace. In a soft paroxysm, the blush petals fluttered around them, airily, gently drifting to the silver blue pool of light they sat in on his bed in a moment of quiet beauty.

Carefully Shepard took one in her fingers and raised it, his hand slipping through hers as together they looked at the flower, a frail glimmer of living beauty against the darkness around them.

“Do you know the legend of these? The cherry blossom?” she asked, her voice unusually quiet, her eyes looking closely at the delicate petals of the flower. He shook his head, his heart searing with love at the look in her eyes. He had wandered past the cherry trees in the Presidium more times than he could count, occasionally stopping to look at them on particularly bad days, like the one in which they had met, never knowing they had a story. She sank down onto his lap, leaning into his chest, looking at the fragile life in her fingers.

She took his hands carefully, alien in alien, and laced in hers. She felt him holding her, his other hand slipping against her back to the silky plane of her warm skin beneath. She leaned her forehead head on his chin, looking at the folded petals, quietly beginning as he held her close.

“A long, long time ago, in ancient times, a period of terrible war ravaged a far green country. The land was beautiful and filled with life, but despoiled by desolation, misery, and death. Moments of peace would happen only in flashes; fragile things that didn’t last, giving just enough reprise to tease a glimmer of hope, before being cruelly devoured by fire."

"Deep in this land and high in the mountains was a forest glade untouched by war; so beautiful that soldiers refused to battle there. Deep in this hidden place was a tree. But it was very sick; starved, and lifeless. So wretched that all who looked at it it were afraid to come near, even animals and grass. The tree was so ill that it couldn’t bloom at all, and never bore flowers. Spring came and went, year after year, and the tree would never blossom. It eventually gave up even trying, until it became completely alone, cast out from the other trees and creatures of the forest. It’s only companions became loneliness and despair.”

Black eyes behind a silk veil searched through her as ships evanesced into the night, as clear in her mind as the flower in her hands. She felt a tear form, but she closed her eyes, holding it back. 

“Then, one fateful day, a fae chanced across the tree. So moved to pity was he that the offered to cast a spell that turn the tree into a person, but only for so long, so it would understand what it was like to have a heart. To experience life, so that it might become happy and bloom. The fae knew it was a terrible thing to live a whole life, only to die.”

Across time, the sapphire glittered in her palm.

“The tree thought hard, knowing of the unintended consequences that come with the gifts of fairies who walk the cosmic plane. Some said they were gentle spirits, while others claimed they were demons, and some even claimed, a mix of both. But looking at it’s lifeless limbs, the tree finally said ‘yes’. And the fae, seeing a better world for the tree if it could only live as it was intended, gave it a heart and from that day forward made it alive.”

Her eyes closed, all her years and yearning and mistakes flashing forward in terrible precision. Garrus pulled her closer to his face, his eyes closed as he listened, her voice and all it’s beauty reverberating through him. Turians did not shed tears, but for the first time since his mother had left for the spirit-world, he wished he could. He understood in every fiber of him that she was telling him, and only him, in her own way the story of her life.

“...And so, transformed, the tree began to walk the world. Yet...there was so much war in the country, so much woe and hate, that with this heart came a curse of feeling. The tree became weary and disappointed, feeling the last years of the spell slip away from it, fearing that soon it would die without ever blooming at all.”

She now looked at him, pressing her face to his, the blossom held in their hands as she looked upon him.

“But one day, another stranger came by the tree. This, time, a girl. She was called -”

 _“-I’m a girl in this story?_ ” he flanged gently, pressing his face tenderly to hers and she smiled and kissed him again, saying with a sweet, sad laugh, “ _shhh, listen._ The girl was named _Sakura. ”_ Jane smiled carefully, gazing at him, and held the flower to his face, “That means ‘cherry blossom’.”

Their faces pressed together in the soft silver light, she reached her fingers across his face, exhaling with a heart light and heavy and tearing with feeling, running her fingers down the plates of his face, closing her eyes; her feeling for him too great to bear. She continued, almost a whisper.

“When the tree first saw Sakura, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. But most of all...she was kind, and wished exquisitely of a better world. And she would come to the tree, who had no name but quickly called himself, _Yohiro -_ which means, ‘hope’. Sakura and Yohiro would come to each other, day by day growing closer, just to spend time together, sometimes even for nothing at all, and slowly the two became friends, then inseparable. Together they would sit, sharing stories, talking just to talk, making up excuses to be in each other’s company. And the tree...his heart, hard beneath his bark, began to soften, realizing that he was in love.”

She gripped him, not looking as she felt him run his fingers through her hair, pressing her head against him in embrace, his heart overflowing with sorrow and joy, pressing his brow back into her as she continued, whispering,

“So he told her, finally, _I love you…_ but Sakura didn’t know what to do. She became very quiet, remaining silent to Yohiro, until one day, she disappeared. The tree was lost without her, searching and searching, until the terrible day came when fae’s spell ran out, and he turned back into that doomed, sickly tree...”

But he couldn’t bear it any longer. He felt her tears and couldn’t hold in his heart, unwilling to let her story end this way. He looked at her softly, watching her face look slowly to his. Bittersweetly, he wished the morning and with it all that always seemed to tear them apart would never come.

He leaned in, pressing his face to the side of her face, breathing her in. She was shaking, so close her forehead was against his chin, feeling her fingers go through thin lycra-like clothing worn beneath his armor. Their faces pressed to each other, her hands in his. Wordlessly, they took it off together, exposing his body to her as he took her in his arms. She pressed against him in feeling, their fingers gripping the edges of the thin black camisole covering her, looking to her for permission. She nodded, eyes closed, and he took it off of her, carefully, and slowly. Her heart was racing though tears streamed down her face, her lips and the bridge of her nose flushing as her life-blood, as red as her hair, coursed through her, overwhelmed with the joyous pain of love, the scattered petals soft and cool beneath her thighs, scattered across his sheets. 

He drifted near her, watching as she bared her alien flesh, seeing her in full for the first time; a silken smooth body of softly running curves, moon-pale at the shoulders and breasts, dusted with coppery freckles, and utterly unlike any woman of his own kind. He looked upon her, the shape of her body bringing his mind to dunes of sand rolling through a moonlit desert, her eyes two stars of silver. She looked at him through the Citadel light filtering through his window, the cold glass once so desolate, now lit with a twilight he wished would last forever. 

He felt her fingers slipping again down his face, his eyes closing in feeling, then opening, seeing not the armor that made the layers of her identities, her names, her titles, but now merely a woman, looking to him through tears, asking to be his. He looked back at her feeling his heart sear, kissing his forehead to hers, pressing his cheek against her, holding her, pushing his face against hers and whispered, as he clasped her tight, a phrase in his native tongue beyond translation. 

His mother, the finest turian linguist in generations, had tried to define it for years. She would sigh when he would ask, running her hand over her skull and explaining for the twentieth time, him never tiring of hearing her parse it out once again just for him, that it was the heart of all that it meant to be turian; the cornerstone that had built the manse of their world. When written, it looked remarkably simple, yet took great care to master. The phrase, in all the tragedy and beauty that it meant, was only two strokes. One wrapped inside the other, forming a concentric circle of reminiscent of two moons caught together. It meant, as closest she could come to translate at the surface, 'orbit with no beginning or end', yet the deeper connotation, and only when spoken, was a vow. It meant, she would tell her son as he would look at her warmly from across her desk with all it’s scattered tea cups, as close as she could explain, ‘devotion past death’.

He took her in his arms and she surrendered. The weight, the terrible weight, the deep cut wounds from a thousand conflicts mortal and emotional fell through at his touch. Her body pressed to his, two becoming one. He could feel her delicate spine, so exposed, the flexing ranges of her musculature, the small bones cresting the nape of her neck; irresistibly he pressed down and kissed, feeling her neck slide against his face, her hair slipping over his eyes and mandibles. He was suffocating, each intake of breath caught in his chest, burning, as he touched her, his palms making love to her anatomy. He tucked his sharp chin into the space beneath her neck and shoulder, so tight from shouldering weapons over the years that it felt like stone. He pressed hard, her cheek met his; she pulsed beneath him, her lips open, breathing; ensnaring him in desire.

Her shoulder gave, her skin in all its foreign silk pressed against his jaw as he pushed into it. She cried out again, the sound entrancing, so close to his ear, enflaming him. He pushed into her again, driving his full weight on her, his hips meeting her body, revealing his arousal, and she cried again, harder - the sound ringing but not in fear or surprise, but want. His hands slid carefully around the curve of her waist, steadying himself as he drew upon her scent and it intoxicated him into hysteria, his mind and body overwhelmed, destroyed. He couldn't take it any longer. He had to give her what he had been holding, hiding, starving for months, chanced in front of them, then chased away. The cherry blossoms falling from them, he pulled away, reached under her and softly pressed her on her back into his bed. He leaned in, breathing, pressing his face against hers, their eyes closed together, her hands slipping in his.

_“Do you want this?”_

_“Please.”_ she whispered, her eyes in his with tears of feeling, her hands on his face, cherry blossom petals caught in her hair like lace.

His eyes met hers as they opened; she was breathing heavy through her parted lips, her chest gleaming, he could hear her heart pounding with life through her chest. She begged him, a whisper; as his body with its flesh blistering leaned over her, her hands slipping down the sides of his face, her eyes filled with in a dream, hips magnetized to alignment, her body opening for him.

The sound of her voice was a siren's call in his mind, swimming in his body, igniting every nerve, burning into fever; alive. Her hands slipped to him, grasping the plates running down the center of the back of his neck. He couldn't think, he couldn't reason. He heard only the seduction of her breath and the sound of his name upon it as he thought of becoming one with her - that image censoring all others - near destroying his judgement, but he knew he couldn’t; not yet. There was nothing and no one, he might never have this moment again he thought darkly before pushing that thought out of his mind; there was finally time.

He tipped her softly back, her head falling far behind her until he caught in the angle of his elbow. His body pushed against her as her hair slid over his skin, warming it from the cold. Her eyes closed as in a dream, her lips open and breathing as he watched entranced, moving his thumb over the silken plane of her body, feeling the folds of her receptive to him as he slipped his fingers down, her pulsing nerves growing firm against his finger tip as he moved it in soft circles, beginning to pleasure her as he drank her with his eyes as she collapsed into hypnosis. 

He watched the addicted movements of her body, beauteous and yielding, moving with a mind that was no longer in control of it. Her flesh so unbelievably silken, resilient and warm. Touching her made sex with another turian feel like concrete in comparison. Breath escaped her in jagged, barely conscious wisps as the flames where he pressed his fingers in friction over her enflamed her in ecstasy without shame or guilt; burned and pushed into the mattress as she surrendered to the waves of heat he forced upon her. She tried hard to keep from crying her voice into the darkness, but failed. Her voice pealed in his ears, such a beautiful sound was the music of her body, the sound singing as he slid his hands over her.

He had to have her, he had tried to wait, but it was beyond him. He simply couldn't. Her eyes opened just beneath his as he arced over her, sliding his fingers with their scythed nails, stroking. She writhed so hard he had to pin her down as her flexible spine arched, his face against her mouth stifling the cries that fell from her like fire from her lips, the wordless language of her body swimming for him as it danced with, as he had read her people accurately called, _la petite mort._

He kissed her with his brow, face pressed against hers, pushing; again and again, losing himself in the opening softness of her, seeing the way the tears of emotion stung her eyes as he paused to look into them, her fingertips on his face, worshiping at the altar of him, as he allowed the spearhead of his rapture to move forth from the hidden parts of his body to come forth and touch her while they lay together, turian and human, forehead to forehead. 

Something like water flowed from deep inside of her, the natural lubricant he until recently never knew she had. Through the calm that had come at the center of that moment, he let it slide over his fingers as he slipped them through in with affection, with terrible slowness, patience, through the open petals of her, running over with arousal. He closed his eyes and slid his fingers from her body, as she looked at him in tears. She wanted him to penetrate her so desperately she was begging him, speaking the words, lost of her voice with her hands in his crest, her breath gone with lips just moving with nearly no sound; destroyed of any other desire than to lay with him forever. 

Desperate, his lust so hard he felt like dying, she melted beneath the waves of him as he lost himself in movement. There was nothing, nothing that was going to stop him this time. He had almost had her once, he had almost tasted that feeling, the heavy release of entering, of sliding himself through her, too much to bear. He had dreamed of it for too long, he had imagined it too many times. Her eyes in his, he whispered to her in his native dialect, stroking, but she could barely hear a word. He told her that she was beautiful, that she was all he ever wanted, that he would die for her, as he slid his fingers inside her body, as she pierced a cry like honey to his ears, clear into the dark.

He looked into her eyes so close to his, his body pressed against hers, her hands slipping down his crest, down the plates ridging his neck, her eyes glazed, watching. His body, so different and so unimaginably warm; she could only shiver, lips breathing, pleading him, luring him, her arms outstretched begging him into another forehead kiss, which he touched to her with closed eyes, unable to deny her. His hips moved in as he wrapped his arms around her body, lifting her head against his chest, and pressed his erection to the edge of her, and quickly slipped the condom on, deftly purchased while the three women at the pharmacy were inexplicably distracted by an ornate display of Hanar bathing salts. Her face pressed against his, his eyes with hers, he promised her a future eternal, as he pierced her for the very first time. He never in his entire life forgot the sound she made as he slid into her. Everything she was, everything she knew, fell away in the moment that he became one with her, his blood within her body, his breath against her ear; nothing else mattered. She felt him pulsing beneath his skin, burned within her in ruinous ecstasy. 

His long body arced over hers, his lengthened anatomy sliding past the bath of her desire, deepening pushing through aching center of her too delirious, too enraptured to protest as slipped deep and hard inside her body. She opened her eyes, watching the beautiful, halcyon expression on his face as his plates relaxed as he began to push within her, as he moved his hips, slowly, with patience. She pressed her shaking lips to his forehead as he leaned down to her as he began to give his body to her, her shivering female cries in dizzied peals beneath him. Everything else gone, the only thing she could feel was him, only seeing the look in his eyes as they opened in their black halos to gaze at her as he began to pant and breathe deeply with his movements as he gave in to pleasure to himself as well. Her hands traveled to his face bringing him close to her, as she looked up to him and pressed her forehead again to him. Her arms spread around him like wings as she touched her lips over his chest and pressed in, kissing him just over his heart.

She knew then, that finally she had found the only thing that made her want to live at all.

She looked into his eyes as he arced above her, and felt the sighs he gave her ring through every atom as they moved together against his bed. She made the choice then to never look anywhere, forward or back, but his eyes. She was his, and his entirely. She would cry his name as he gave her life, ignited and guided by her cries and took her for all the times he couldn't, until they lay exhausted through the night.

Long after she had drifted back to sleep, spent and quiet, he lay beside her. Garrus held Jane’s body against his, listening to the hushed quiet that defined the deepest part of evening when all was still just before the first pale glance of dawn. He ran his fingers through her warm carmine hair, wondering when, like in her story, they would ever find their place in a land untouched by war. He wondered what had happened to the tree and the girl, never having let her finish, the story too sorrowful to bear. He pressed his face to her hair, breathing in her scent, wondering what the sunlight would bring. In truth sometimes he hated the day and preferred the night, feeling mournfully that light perhaps illuminated too much, that the brightness of sun could burn away the fragile ether that held them finally together, like dew evaporating on blades of grass. 

Pained by this thought, he felt the light of the evening and it’s reverie slip behind him moment by moment, wishing the inevitable wouldn’t come. He pressed his forehead to her while she slept, sensing; feeling through her skin that this time she was finally in calm among her dreams. He felt a soft cool touch on his cheek. A sakura flower had transferred from her skin to his. Garrus lifted his head, pulled the bloom from from his face and into his fingers. He held it in the pale blue twilight of gathering dawn, looking at the fragile petals that bloomed in fiery ecstasy only to fall, shattering into nothing. He turned the ephemeral petals of life over in his fingers, his eyes caught in its ruby center. He then looked to Shepard and her hair, splayed like blood across his sheets, so similar in shade to the center of the petals in his fingers. She was beginning to shiver. He gently pulled his sheets over her body to keep her warm; lovely and silver in the dark light.

He rose, still examining the flower in his fingers. This one, crimson and lovely, was slightly darker than the others.

He crossed the room and sat naked at his workbench, quietly arranging a few objects, until at last he had heated the ultra clear, stronger than diamond polymer resin used to seal armor against the vacuum of space to liquid state. He passed his hand over it and let the flower, carnal and fragile, fall into the clear resin, slipping through until it was encased in a perfectly round clear drop like that of rain caught in stasis. Sliding the containment vial over to a laser, he cured it; hardening the flower within clear armor and captured the sakura’s fragile, transient life everlasting. He was no fae, but this, he thought, would be his gift to her; the story of them entwined, beauteous and alive, encased for her like the petals of a flower at its peak. Forever. 

Removing it finally, he held it to the light, shot through with the first gleam of dawn, bringing it back over to Shepard as she lay soundless. He laid the handmade stone gently on top of her folded clothes, hoping she would see it in the morning, as he nestled himself beside his lover, pulling her close, feeling his heart and body heavy with satisfied longing. His heart ached as she, half awake, whispered his name, recognizing him even through her dreams. She instinctually tucked her head to him and fell back into peace in his arms.

Nestled against him, her mind and body finally Whole, Jane dreamt a very strange dream.

* * *

Lieutenant Shepard stood before the newly completed star map of a beautiful stealth ship that was still being built. Turian and human workers scurried busily along in the background, sheer falls of white sparks flying from the last touches of construction still in progress. Standing beside her was the tall, stately turian she had met only that afternoon, but of course, his reputation preceded him. She tilted her head, asking in her most professional voice, hoping he wouldn’t sense her star stricken nerves. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked, watching him look around in uncertainty.

His blue gaze finally fell to the little human in front of him, and he laughed gently, mandibles flaring outward. “Lieutenant, it’s the strangest thing, but I think I’m lost. How did we get here? I can’t... _spirits_ , my memory is getting so terrible. I can’t remember anything at all, even your name from earlier today. I am so sorry. This is all incredibly unlike me.”

But she only smiled warmly at him. He was the longest serving spectre in the galaxy, and yet he was still so humble and kind. She prayed one day to have that quality, if she was ever to become a spectre. 

“It’s Shepard, sir. I’m so sorry you got mixed up, is there something I can help you with? I know this ship like the back of my hand, already.” she said warmly, smiling up at him as he looked around, feeling about his elegant black clothing for something, but unable to find it. He quietly looked very upset.

“It’s the strangest thing, I’m actually quite embarrassed, lieutenant. I think I lost a key. Imagine that.”

Shepard laughed pleasantly along with him, their gaze meeting.

“Oh, well that’s the confusion, sir. It’s not a key, it’s a door.”

His plates raised in gentle bemusement, still confused, but she nodded helpfully. “Do you remember roughly where you were when you lost it, sir?”

“Let’s see. I believe... and this may sound strange, but somewhere in the Terminus systems...I think...the Mu Relay? Spirits, that is so odd. I really do apologize.”

She nodded, listening, looking up at him with a touch of concern. He was far too young to be losing his memory this severely already; she was worried about him, seeing the dark look in his eyes as he seemed to realize he was forgetting himself. Thinking quickly, she tilted her head and asked carefully,

“Sir, give me your hand. I apologize if that is an indiscretion, but I think it will help.”

He looked at her quizzically, a brow plate raising. Humans certainly were unusual creatures, full of strange beliefs and, occasionally, even stranger surprises. “Well alright, lieutenant. I’m desperate.” he finally ventured, looking her from eye to eye.

She extended her hand to him. Across space, she reached and Saren Arterius touched.

Between them a section of the galaxy map glowed a cool, peaceful blue. 

“Ah, I see it.” she said calmly, opening her eyes and looking over to the star map and then back up to him with a gentle smile. 

“Illos, sir. The door is on Illos.”

  
  



	13. Kundalini

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware. 
> 
> Out of the ash. I rise with my red hair. 
> 
> And I eat men like air.
> 
> \- Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath

Jane’s eyes opened calmly for the first time she could remember with the word _Illos_ ringing through her mind. 

She took a deep breath, holding the dream in behind her eyes; traveling back to it, a memory built on memory. Half things that occurred, half the hair-raising visions of the great unconscious river that now flowed through her in lapping, cosmic currents, licking at her flesh. Labyrinths in labyrinths, symbols as wound and woven as the witch-knots of her youth. Like the reaper dreams that tormented her it had all been hyper-real. A dark play on her near photographic memory that only seemed to be growing stronger with each day.

The faces clear, scents and sounds as strong as anything in life, Saren’s voice perfect to pitch and unwarbled. There was none of the cloudy miasma that made common dreams surreal. _No_ , she thought, finally accepting, these were altogether different. Unexplainable and arcane, she sensed beyond logic that what she had seen was real. If they were going to call her insane to her face, she thought, may as well simply accept it. Perhaps even, they were right. Yet against all odds, she weighed, her intuition had never led her astray so far. 

Shepard blinked softly, her light eyes wincing as she adjusted to the full morning light of the strange lone sun of the Widow system. She had never liked the star in truth, with it’s distant were-light glow; always wondering in the back of her mind why it bore no planets, giving light only to the great ancient structure she now lay upon aside her lover. Nevertheless, it’s light streamed through the window to warm her freckled skin in a borealis of rose-gold igniting the miniscule red hairs that covered her, only a simple mammal among these higher beings, a fiery living copper. Laying still, her mind turning to the pleasures of the evening before and she felt her biotics surge through her body in a wave of sudden soft blue light light as she recalled her orgasms. She smiled mysteriously to herself, turning back to look at Garrus again. Somehow, even her biotics felt stronger.

Shepard exhaled, her mind as clear as the day that rang in morning zen outside, feeling more alive than she in so long she couldn’t remember. Perhaps not since childhood, she thought, had it been so long since she had felt this balanced. She turned her head on the pillows, the light turning her eyes nearly clear as she looked to the sleeping male figure aside her. Collapsed into himself was Garrus, sunlit and unconscious as the sounds of morning traffic whisked through the skyscape just beside them. She looked at him closely, having never seen him sleep even though this was the second time they had shared a bed. The sight of him relaxed just inches away, stuck with places in pink petals from their reverie pulled at her heart; there was still so much about him that she didn’t know. But, she supposed, the same went her way as well.

Tall and resolute in the waking realm, he was the complete opposite in repose. She tilted her head in endearment as she looked at him, having to smile a touch at how the long creature slept crunched into himself in nearly the fetal position, his face tucked nearly all the way down into his carapace with his narrow body bent protectively at an angle. She pondered on the shape of him as he dreamt, reflecting on just the way he had touched her the previous evening, with such feeling. Her eyes flicked over to the mysterious little altar in the corner with the picture of the intelligent clear-eyed turian woman who had to be his mother. _Turians. Tactical, observant, service oriented turians_ , she thought as her eyes lingered on the occult items on the altar, were nearly as protective with their secret ways as the asari. She glanced back to him as he quietly breathed, listening to the slight purr that betrayed him while either aroused or in complete relaxation emanating from his chest. She tilted her head once more, sighing inwardly, heavy with the knowledge that he was far more vulnerable than he looked. Knowing he tended towards hyper-vigilance, she slid out of his bed as soundlessly and carefully as possible, a skill practiced from her youth.

She rose, her nude curves shining in the sun, feeling alive, powerful, and light. Jane smiled to herself as she brushed a confetti of pale pink sakura petals off her breasts and shoulders, remembering him; her heart pulsing heavy in emotion. She looked back yet again at Garrus, his tawny skin and plates gilded along the sierra of his edges where the sun lit him like kintsugi. She realized, strangely, she had never touched another living being as long as they had connected through the evening. She breathed in, eyes closed, then out; feeling inexplicably as if she had absorbed some hidden part of him. As if, like Liara’s meld, somehow something had transferred from the turian into her, a current of the energy that made him _him_ was now somehow swimming through her blood. 

Unable to take her eyes away, she dipped to the floor to pick up her tightly folded clothing. She suddenly felt something smooth roll against her hand. She bowed her head and looked. Shepard took the clear drop of hardened epoxy that Garrus had carefully placed there between her thumb and index finger and stared. 

Within it, caught in unending life, was a deep red flower from the bed they lay upon for their joining. Her breath caught in her chest as she stared at it; a promise without translation, just as all the things he whispered to her in his language through the night. She looked past it to his dreaming body, seeing the sunlight upon him intensify, searing her heart through with love. She could only gaze at the momento, her heart breaking against the symphony of meaning that it gave her. Her eyes took in the intricacy of the triple bloomed sakura, realizing that even though he didn’t want to hear the ending of her fable that they had already lived it. He had given the sickly tree it’s first true, perfect bloom.

With a heaviness that made her heart weary, she sighed and slowly reached deep into a pocket of her folded clothing and revealed from it its darker twin, the sapphire. That drop of stygian ocean that she had carried in complete secret since the day she received it among the falling tears of Omega. Her heart panged as she looked at it, it’s facets glittering in the light. She had deceived her old krogan friend when she gave him the carefully edited telling of her past life; some truths of her heart too labyrinthine with emotion to explain out loud. It was, after all, her most hidden secret; the single thing she carried with her, pressed against her skin like a prayer for years, never even telling Kaidan of it's existence. She had not once let it away from her, even in battle, since the dark night she received it, the ‘fairy-gift’ from the elegant stranger; the subtle slip of fate that had changed the course of her entire life. In her dash from Omega, she had traded it for services rendered twice, and each time stolen it back, unable to leave it behind.

A rare thing of immense value, the sapphire was worth enough to buy her passage off of the asteroid with enough to live comfortably after for a year. Yet she was utterly unable to part with it, the corporeal reminder of the very first time someone had ever looked upon her and saw anything other than something to pity. She had taken from it only courage, even giving it a name. With the _paragon_ hidden against her heart, she had walked from that day forward with purpose. With it was the hidden reminder that someone somewhere in the black folds of starry evening thought that she was worth saving. The number of nights while laying in bed unable to sleep she would take it in her fingers and hold it to starlight trying to scry the face that gave it to her were innumerable. Only the faint outlines of his eyes remained looking back through time. Black as dark space, beauteous, yet unknowable. She would stare at the stone in her fingers, traveling to the stranger through time in her mind, wondering without answer who he was, where he was, and the most consuming question of all, _why._

But now Shepard held two stones in her hands. The blue of the past and the red of the present, pathways leading left and right, one cold, one hot, two decisions rolling through her fingers. She thought on the two paths trying to see where they led, hearing two voices in her ears. One stranger, one friend; exquisite and secret verses open and daring. She wondered which in truth she was, weighing one against the other. She felt the incredibly strange events of the past several days seemed to be only intensifying, and even further, that the two stones now before her in her hands, both priceless gifts, held key alignments of the stars that wrote her destiny, representing a choice of fate. 

Her grey eyes turned upward to Garrus as he slept, the beautiful creature that held her rapture; the most loyal friend she had ever known in the life of hers that felt so much like the wandering tree of her story. She felt her heart ache with pain, closing. She realized she had already made her decision the night before, held like home in his eyes and arms. He was Sakura; the flower of carnage. A moment of ephemeral beauty whose purpose was to remind her not to slip forever into memory and solipsism, but to see the world and all the loveliness that was right in front of her. Life in all it’s parables, she thought, was too tragically brief to mourn what could never be.

With that, she said goodbye to the paragon, thanking it for its lesson. Yet, still even in that moment when she had finally rejected it, the fae stone still had a hold on her. Her heart sensed that somehow it had always somehow brought her luck, even though Wrex had joked that it was cursed. It may not be the thing she needed, she thought, but it was not something to simply throw away. Shepard rather gave it one last look before swooping to the floor to carefully wrapped it in the beautiful pink paper that her chopsticks had come in, taking it to Garrus’ desk and upon it wrote in mild sarcasm, 

_‘Trade you. With love, from Omega. Ask me about it sometime, preferably over drinks.’_

Feeling clever, she left it behind his mother’s picture on his altar looking forward to the day that he would find it. She was certain his sharp mind would find some practical use for such a rare item, and that they would have a great laugh over one of his obscure liquors of choice as she would tell him the story of the time she met a Drell. Now holding the flower-stone, the petals so vermillion it looked to be wreathed in flame, she tilted her head in thought, naming it for Garrus; _renégat_. They and all they had experienced were, as he himself had so astutely joked, the best bad decision she had made all week. 

She looked at her reflection in the black mirror of his comm screens to her right, her eyes traveling over the lines of her body reflected in the darkness, thinking over every decision that had led, somehow, to that moment. She looked into her own eyes in the dark reflection, searching herself. The straight and narrow path of her life so far, the path of water paved with her tears and the prayer of a Drell in rain, had only gotten her so far.

Now was the time for fire.

The sakura-stone was gripped so tightly in her hand it felt hot. She looked down one last time at the stone, thinking of her visions, of the demon creature Sovereign, and what lay at stake. 

Her grey glance then fell to his omnitool at his desk and lingered, her mind quietly beginning to piece together a sequence, and then she looked out of the window, fixing on the tiny dot of the Normandy in the distance, harbored at dock. She fixed on it, the ships of her youth glowing bright and taking off into the sky across the bridge of her youth flashing through her mind. She closed her eyes, seeing them, hearing them.

 _Sometimes,_ she heard herself think, _you have to go back to go forward_.

She opened her eyes, the decision made. She felt the last chapter of her life close to a future that hadn’t yet been written. 

Renegade it was.

* * *

Garrus opened his eyes to the sound of a zipper and the scent of smoke.

His eyes opened in attention, focusing his cobalt gaze on a narrow shade near his kitchen emerged from his shower room, gleaming in water and black leather. He blinked, nearly not recognizing her, his head lifting in surprise. Across the apartment the human, her blood colored hair wet and shining, looked down at something in her hands through a cloud of smoke as she exhaled. A cigarette burned between her lips, last night's waterproof makeup darkly ringing her eyes. A Shepard he didn’t quite recognize stared down coldly at the alliance uniform in her hands. Taking one last look at it, dragging on the little flame in her lips, he watched her turn and throw it in the incinerator, the burst of fire lighting her gleaming leather silhouette the same carmine as her hair. She watched it burn, the lit end of the cigarette glowing in her fingers.

He stared, unsure if he was awake. _“Shepard?”_

She didn’t look back, watching her old clothes singe into ash. “Jane.” she said, waiving the cigarette with a flick of her wrist at him, before tossing it into the glass of whiskey she had for breakfast, looking over her shoulder at him as she spoke in her tribal language, her accent thick and unfiltered across her lips, “I needed your omnitool, so I had to break in. Get a firmware update, you need it. And I’ll pay you back for the clothes. Glad to know you get delivery up here.”

He stared at the doppelganger before him, utterly transfixed as she crossed the room. She was speaking fluent french which she never did, even moving like an entirely different person; fluid, sanguine. 

Dangerous.

“Oh, and _sorry about the cigarettes._ I quit, but I did wake up this morning with a turian next to me. And you weren't kidding about your showers being hot. “ she said languidly in her mother-tongue as she walked past, giving him a look out of the corner of her eye that sent his heart racing.

“Why did you change?” he said, referring to her clothes yet the question stood for everything, him now fully sitting up and staring at her as she sat at his desk, her fingers moving into action through going through his personal terminals, bringing up a star map. He watched her shoulder shrug in a little laugh as she slid it over to the other screen, zooming and intensifying on the Terminus System, saying silkily in french, “Come on Garrus. Black is the only color for crime.”

Without saying another word to him he watched her call Liara, his undressed body still in full view in the background of the viewpoint, but before he could hide himself, the call rang through. His heart freezed as he watched Liara, swathed in an expensive looking white robe in an airy hotel somewhere in the asari financial district, slip into the camera. The asari, suddenly shocked, peered into her screen, taken aback by the sight of the black shade that replaced Shepard, with Garrus trying and failing at being invisible in the background.

Paying her surprise no attention, Jane asked, still in french, “Best guess. _Where?_ ” 

Liara stared at her, only able to blink in rapid succession as she processed what she was seeing and hearing, _“Shepard?”_

Jane nodded, lighting another cigarette off the burning edge of Garrus’s omnitool while they both stared at her, “Best guess for the door. Just tell me Liara, I know you’re a scientist. Prove my hypothesis.” 

Liara’s brows knotted downward; she thought she had wiped her memory. Jane exhaled a cloud of smoke and turned back to Garrus, mouthing the words, _Mu relay_ so Liara couldn’t see; all he could do was stare, his mind falling over itself, 

_Who was she?_

“Well, the farthest Tali and I could get, was somewhere in the Terminus System. Now, there are so many variables and factors - what I saw so _incredibly_ open to interpretation-”

But Jane interrupted, her voice direct and low, “Liara. _Don’t_ . _No doubts, here, meld-partner._ Come on. If anyone knows this, it’s you. Don’t tell me what you think you know - _tell me what you know you know._ Intuition, _right now,”_ she tapped her fingernail twice on the desk, eyes fixed in Liara, _“_ Where is it?”

Garrus watched doubt slip past Liara’s beautiful eyes, biting her lip at the incredulousness of it all, nothing paining an academic more than being asked a snap decision on emotion alone. As if tortured, she looked back at Shepard seriously, parsing, 

“Mu relay. _But I can’t explain_ -” 

Yet Jane was already nodding, swinging around in his chair, cigarette perched in her lips with a dark smile as she looked at Garrus, proven correct. He only shook his head, utterly in shock at all whatever the hell was happening, his mind trying to find understanding. She swirled back around, interrupting, _“Illos, Liara, it’s on Illos.”_ Liara’s words caught in her mouth, her head jutting forward, eyes narrowing as she processed, lips forming the planet’s name but the word never coming to fruition. But for the second time, Jane interrupted her, 

“Listen. In about 35 minutes I plan on being in Zakera ward. You, under no circumstances, are going to allow Tali to follow me. Wrex is already in, I don’t need another shotgun. She’s got her whole life ahead of her and I’m not letting her throw it away on this. _The same goes for you too Liara._ If I see you, watch your knee caps. You’re staying right where you are, and I’m taking the Normandy through that relay. Saren knows where it is too. Get transport for yourself and Tali, _now,_ and get the fuck off of this space station as fast as you can. That’s an order.”

Liara looked at her, lips parted in wild upset, her eyes looking through the screen to Garrus who only looked back in as much shocked consternation as Jane rose, not giving her a chance to answer, before shutting off the call. She reached inside her jacket, pulling out the M5-Phalanx concealed within and pointed it downward to the floor, checking through the sights.

“So…” Garrus’s eyes flicked her up and down, _“Do I know you?”_

But she only looked downwards through the optic of her gun, adjusting the heat sink in one smooth, practiced movement.

“Of course you do.” she said, the corner of her lips turning up in dark sarcasm with the cigarette still in it as she looked over to him,

“I’m commander shepard, and I’m taking back my fucking ship.”

 _“That good?”_ Garrus quipped, only able to displace with humor as he watched her darkly smirk, her eyes glittering as she smiled at him, taking the cigarette and putting it out. “You could say I’m feeling a little inspired. Ever steal a ship before, Garrus?”

He blinked, amazed at the question, leaning in, brow plates raising incredulously, “And _you have_?” She only laughed, avoiding his gaze.

“Not anything nearly as nice as the Normandy, but _yes_.” she said with a knowing smile. She slipped the weapon back in the holster hidden inside her clothes, looking at him now wryly with her eyes glinting in a way he hadn’t seen since they had sparred together.

“I did tell you, a long time ago it feels like now, that alot _does_ go on in Omega.”

He could only stare at her, caught somewhere between lust and captivation, as she slithered past the end of the bed and leaned into his spotting scope at the window, swiveling it towards Zakera ward, finely adjusting its distance attenuations to point directly at the Normandy. Her hair fell over her eyes, obscuring her face as she carefully observed her ship in the distance, saying to him quietly,

“You have been the best friend I’ve ever had. I told you before, and I’m telling you again that they want you back at C-Sec. You can walk away from all of this, Garrus. All of it, just go, and I will not blame you, and I will live my whole life, whatever remains of it, without ever forgetting you...But to me, now, there’s two options as I see it. One: I’m right, and I save thirteen million people... Or two: I’m wrong, and end up in prison or dead. And I don’t want either of those last options for you.”

Shepard with her red hair that ate men like air, looked at him leaning away from his scope and looked directly into his eyes as he stared at her, exhaling. His eyes bored into her as she said, again,

_“I love you.”_

His entire life flashed before his eyes, all of his memories in rapid succession, all of his life’s disappointments, his father’s pushing, his mother’s illness, the loss of his scholarship, the blocking of his applications, time after time, to enter spectre academy. The picture of his mother positioned just behind her suddenly shone blinding silver in the sun as it’s rays intensified, sending a flare of light into his eyes just behind Shepard. He winced, then watched as the glimmer from the sunlight reflecting off his mothers image then passed to his rifle cabinet right in front of him, suddenly sparkling with prismatic reflections. It was as if the spirits, which he had never quite believed in until the strange happenings of that week, were showing him the way. 

Without a word, he tore himself still nude out of the bed and briskly walked over to his gun closet, swinging the doors open with both arms to look at the collection he had been building his entire life. She watched him lean decisively in, emerging with his Black Widow gleaming darkly with his M6-Carnifex in his other hand, his blue gaze traveling over them, then intensely over to her. He pausing as he looked at her, shining carefully with a cold gleam in his eyes.

“You’re going to need a bigger gun.” he said in finality at last, his mandibles flaring as he made eye contact with her.

“For treason.” 

At that, she smiled very slowly, staring back at him, the worlds between them meaning nothing. He came to slowly nod back at her, the look of the decision behind his gaze cobalt and clear, linked in hers. All he said as he looked at her from across the little studio with the cherry blossoms still scattered on the floor in the home that was never truly a home to him, that he was now ready to abandon twice, was,

_“I love you too. And I’m not letting you do this alone.”_

They gazed to each other, their eyes locked together in emotion. He broke the silence, his voice vibrating and low as she felt the glances of adrenaline course across her heart, 

“Let’s go.”

* * *

_Ding._

The elevators opened and two figures emerged, walking in unison, side by side. An armored turian aside a smaller human female, gleaming black and red with her eyes behind sunglasses, another cigarette in her lips. They walked together, side by side, both carrying long black gun cases. Their bodies moved nearly in unison as they tread directly for the door through the glassy lobby, their reflections casting dark shadows on the cream-white marble. 

The one security guard kicked the other under the front desk to tear his eyes away from the vid he was watching, indicating for him to look. In complete silence their eyes moved together, watching the dark pair who looked like a conspiracy about to happen, slide through the lobby, side by side in silence. From outside they heard the _chirp-chirp_ of a luxury black rental car self-hover to the the entryway, suicide doors winging open for them. They watched the human slip into the passenger seat, Vakarian in the driver’s. As the doors closed slowly back shut, she turned her head to look at them, tilting her gaze down through her sunglasses to read their faces.

The quiet one swallowed hard as she looked directly at him, her grey eyes piercing through the space between them to his yellow, before she smirked carefully to give him a darkly sarcastic little salute, touching her fingers to her temple languidly, before she disappeared behind the gleaming black metal of the closing door, and they were gone. 

After a long silence, asked the quiet turian “What the hell was _that_?" his eyes still fixed on the door long after they had left. He had now seen three women, precisely three more than he had ever seen in all the times they had watched the lonesome, work addicted officer that lived in the building, walk in with him. And now in twenty four hours, two had left in tears, and the red-haired third the morning after utterly transformed to a wasp in gleaming black.

The other one chuckled, turning back to his vid _Blasto VIII: The Good, The Bad, and The Tentacled,_ “ _That,_ is a hookup done right.” he said, exhaling a sharp, cynical laugh as he sipped from a thermos, “Who would have ever thought Vakarian, of all people, had a magic dick.” 

* * *

Jane turned to Garrus, yet both of their eyes were transfixed at the barricade of five C-Sec officers standing between them and the Normandy hovering at dock, gleaming silver in the high-noon sun. They had strategically switched places, her in the driver's seat now so that when she exited it wouldn’t be immediately apparent that the vehicle wasn’t empty. They had pushed the passenger seat all the way back to accommodate for the length of the Widow sniper rifle, Garrus with his helmet on while he looked through the high-end optic through the windshield.

“No kill shots if it goes sideways,” she said quietly as they stared at them, the M-98 Widow glinting like a reaper beside him, his eyes still through the sights. “Just maim and get on board after you cover me. There’s no point in killing the people we’re trying to save. If anyone has to die, I want it on my hands.”

“I can’t promise that.” he said quietly, staring through the glass, “They’ve been given orders. If they try anything - “

“- But _you will_ promise me that Garrus. Consider it an order. _Understood_?”

The turian, now featureless behind the mask of his armor, turned slowly to her; her own face reflected across the glassy navy surface of his helm. His sniper rifle was spread before him, glinting mechanical, ominous, and black. He was an angel of death with it, she knew, quietly concerned, the irony of his rifle’s namesake not lost on her. After a long moment of consideration, he nodded solemnly. 

“Ok.” she said quietly, turning her grey eyes to the officers before her, taking a deep breath then reaching for the door handle, “Wait,” said Garrus suddenly, and she back to turned to him. He nodded his head toward a tall turian in the distance with emerald green eyes, “That one there, the leader. That’s Chellick. I know him, he’s a friend. He’s a good man. Appeal to him, Jane. He might listen.” 

Shepard nodded, her eyes on the tall turian in the distance before her. She turned back to Garrus, their eyes meeting for what could be the last time, then she quickly turned the handle and was out. She was not one for tearful goodbyes, she decided.

The blaring sun of the Citadel’s lone star lit the expanse between her and the ship a blinding white. As soon as she emerged from the gleaming black car their eyes were on her, the unmistakable shade of her hair burning like a flame in the distance between them. She felt eyes and barrels on her, but she paid no mind. She merely walked forward, calmly and with purpose, the silver hull of the Normandy her only goal. Five human and turian silhouettes were all that stood between her and destiny. Back on Omega, she mused to herself, she had faced far worse than them, a handful of soft C-Sec officers who probably only wanted to get back to their lives at the end of their shift.

 _“Stop!”_ called one of the C-Sec men, his assault rifle up and trained on her as she approached. The sun blazing in her eyes, setting her hair aflame in reflected color. She was close enough to see their faces now.

“No.” she said casually, continuing forward. It was simply not her will this day. A strange clarity came over her. She knew, somehow, she was going to be fine, and that she was going to get on her ship where she belonged.

“I am warning you! We have orders-”

“You know who I am. You know why I’m here. Get out of my way and there will be no blood shed.” she said calmly, looking to the leader, grey eyes meeting emerald. Chellick stared at her, his weapon trained on her, but after a moment of the two staring into each other he lowered the tip of his barrel to the ground, though still ready, and approached. 

“Commander. I can’t let you pass,” said the turian officer grimly, looking into her eyes shining a near clear silver as she stood in the full sun. 

“You _will_. Do the right thing.” she said, looking from one of his eyes to the other. He exhaled, his mandibles flaring outwardly as he looked at her, a small figure wearing only civilian clothing, without even a shred of armor. He hated killing women.

“It’s not up to me Shepard.” he said grimly, his eyes traveling over her body, clocking the faint print of a pistol under the leather of her close fitting jacket. His eyes fixed on it, gun still held in his hand.

“But it is,” she said, staring into him with uncanny calmness, “We are the ones who make our own choices. And you need to step aside.” she said again, her eyes narrowing on him, her voice lowering. 

“There are thirteen million reasons on this Citadel that you need to step aside right now, Chellick. Let me pass.”

Chellick felt himself tighten in anticipation and as the sound of his own name, which he did not know how she knew. He looked at her, staring into her eyes, preparing himself for what he knew he must do. “Give me your weapon, commander.” he finally said, coldly measured, taking another step forward. But she only smiled a little, her hands not moving at all with her body completely still. Her eyes found the tiny, thin extra line in his facial paint just beneath his dominant eye that gave away that he was married.

“Friend, I am a weapon. Don’t make me make your wife a widow.”

“I’m _not_ your friend, Shepard.” he said icily, raising his barrel, but she only smiled a little more, her eyes clear and beautiful.

“No. But you’re his.”

Before his finger could move to the trigger, Chellick’s M-76 Revenant exploded into a mist of glittering shrapnel in his hand from the force of the high powered round that tore through it, missing his skull by inches. The shot sent shrapnel in pieces ranging from inches long to microscopic, blinding through his emerald eyes that loved to watch his children play, yet that now would fall rimmed in cobalt turian blood and bandaged for several weeks while they built him new scleras. He staggered, falling back. In one lightning fast movement Shepard drew her M5 Phalanx with with her right hand, her left dashing out in a surge of pulsing with blue biotics. With a clear mind and without an argument in her head, the red head did two things at once, ever the multi-tasker. She pulled her trigger finger. The officer to her right fell as her right hand dashed to motion, shooting precisely though the human’s knee cap, destroying it and he crumpled. She shot again in quick succession as she heard Garrus take this next shot to one of the other five, exploding another gun, Shepard sending his ruined firearm skittering across the concrete.

In the same fraction of time, her left hand moved so quick that it was a blur of peach and blue, her biotics strangely charged with the power as she had noticed that morning. While she shot with her right, the graceful thin fingers of her left hand moved, pushing a hard barrier of biotic force against the turian officer immediately to her side; throwing his body in a blaze of blue and sending him searing forth into the officer next to him in tidal wave of blistering energy, their bodies like colliding like ragdolls, smashing into each other, rolling as they both fell unconscious on the concrete. 

From before her like a prayer, the starboard hatch of the silver dream that was the Normandy SR-1 glided open to the glass and carnage between Shepard and destiny. Above her, revealed in slow motion as the gull wing of the hatch slid open was Wrex, who slammed himself down on the pavement with a weight that quaked the earth and came running - he was horrifyingly faster than he looked - looking like a living boulder, shotgun drawn and raised. Behind him, Shepard’s heart soared as a line of men stood upon the Normandy with guns drawn covering them. The entire engineering crew, Tali’s spindly but deadly entourage nonetheless armed and ready aside several other privates including the loudmouthed blonde kid Kyle, and aside him Chakwas with a custom chromed-out handcanon as silver as her hair. In their center, dead-eyed calm was even Jeff ‘Joker’ Moreau with a Geth pulse rifle trained directly on the last remaining C-Sec officer, just a kid, as Shepard walked right up to him while he shook like a leaf as she approached. She grabbed the gun right out of his hand and tossed it behind him to Wrex, who caught it and pistol whipped him out of the way as he roared affectionately up to her, 

_“SHEPARD!”_

They collapsed into a bear hug that lifted her off the ground and she ended it as he set her down with a french _faire la bise,_ kissing him lightly on both of his monstrous cheeks, laughing, _‘WREX!”_

He clapped her shoulder, smiling his terrifying jagged krogan smile while he looked her up and down in her new gleaming clothes, _“You look good!”_ She laughed happily at his approval, feeling warmth spread through her as he joyously kicked the gun out of an officers hand as he crawled pathetically towards it. Chellick rose defeated with about a dozen sights from the Normandy drawn on him to blink through the blood in his eyes as Garrus approached them, his helmet still on anonymous and blue, gleaming in the noon sun, his rifle glinting long and deadly at his side. Wrex turned to Garrus, all eyes on him as he grabbed Wrex’s hand in a shake. Wrex smiled his toothy predator grin even wider, looking between him and Shepard, glowering fondly,

“And your balls finally dropped, turian. _You bred.”_ the krogan said knowingly, glancing between he and Shepard, “I can see it in the way you walk.”

Garrus tossed a shoulder in a snort, looking to Shepard and back at Wrex, “You know I don’t have balls Wrex, but even then still more than you. _Ready, Shepard_?”

Wrex shook with dirty laughter while Shepard nodded at him, smiling. From behind them, Chellick only watched, recognizing his armor but not saying a word, his heart still and filled with complexity at the scene before him. Wrex sneered at the clattered men before him as Shepard and Garrus boarded the ship, the krogan backing up facing the downed C-Sec guards with shotgun raised last as they entered, the door closing and the ship breaking away and lifting the moment they were aboard in a pre-ordained sequence from Joker’s omnitool.

Inside the silvery halls of the Normandy as she raced into altitude, Garrus removed his helm as Shepard came to the men and women at the starboard hatch, clasping shoulders and shaking hands with each and every one of them as they saluted, calling her still _commander._ She turned last to Joker, smiling with profound feeling as she grabbed him mid salute and hugged him, him protesting _“Ow, ow! Brittle bones, Shepard, brittle bones!”_ before finally letting him go, looking at with almost sibling love in her eyes, and Garrus watched as Joker let down his mask and smiled back, the two humans looking wordlessly at each other.

“Us gingers gotta stick together,” is all Jeff said, more tenderly than Garrus had ever heard him, in precisely the way sometimes he would talk to Solana sometimes. He watched Shepard wipe a tear from her eye, nodding, worlds of unplaceable feeling in her heart shining through her eyes as she looked at her pilot, saying only “We’re a dying breed, Joker.” She then pivoted, asking quietly, “How many of the crew left?” and he smiled, grabbing her shoulder and looking into her eyes, _“None.”_ She laughed, almost a retort, “You’re _joking_ .” and he shot back, laughing brightly, “Not this time commander. We’re crewed to a man. We all saw what happened on Virmire,” and he pulled her close, deftly whispering in her ear, “ _and I made sure of that_.” before letting her go. Her eyes fell to his, as he continued, his voice serious for once. 

“They're ready. Where are we going, Shep?” 

Without answering, she grabbed him hard in another hug, wordless in the wealth of her gratitude, and he protested about his bones again, laughing, with her saying to him only “Illos.Get Pressley. How fast can you fly, Jeff?” 

Moreau beamed as he hobbled slightly, walking unsteadily beside her as they made their way to the bridge, “ _Please._ Ever see a ship disappear? _Abracadabra,_ commander. Gone in sixty seconds.” he said laughing, exploding his hands out in a mimic of an explosion, the cool overhead lights glancing off his face as they laughed together, _”Like magic, baby.”_

Shepard laughed like sunlight, tossing her hair behind her as she went ahead, Presley beckoning her over to walk beside him as he pulled up a portable star map as they paced together heading for the ships navs. Wrex shuffled behind happily in tow, pushing past Garrus and Joker to catch up, glad he got to see a touch a violence for lunch and even happier that more was on the horizon.

Garrus walked steadily carrying his helmet, his long silver fringe finally free and shining. He stood beside Joker, both of them watching Shepard walk, the curves of her body revealed in her dangerous black clothes. Finally Joker looked up to Garrus, watching his eyes watch her like a magnet, snickering,

 _“So.”_ Joker said knowingly, face cracked open deviously with what the humans called a shit eating grin. Garrus rolled an eye dryly downward towards him, saying only, _“Don't.”_ At that the pilot laughed raucously and flashed his hair under his cap, eyebrows bouncing lasciviously at the turian, “So - _red heads_ , am I right? _”_ Garrus laughed softly, his layered voice low, “Yes, _red heads._ ” he looked to Joker and his copper hair, amused.

“So you’re _all_ insane?”

At that Jeff Moreau laughed again hard, doubling over as he looked from Garrus to the commander down the hall in her sensuous clothing, still leaned into a star map with Pressley, then back at him with a knowing gleam in his eye. He clapped Garrus’s shoulder, smiling darkly and said,

“ _Hell yes_ , birdman. Every last one of us. Welcome to the fire.”


End file.
